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TRICKSTERS AND HUCKSTERS: SHOW BIZ ARCHETYPES
by Addison De Witt
“The Monster, Part II”
If you're about to set sea with the Herculean logistical feat of a live-on-tape all-star musical-variety television special, logic would dictate the appointment of a calm, sure, steady hand at the helm of your ship. If that were the case with the tumultuous voyage I'm about to describe, Dear Reader, your very own Addison would have precious little to write about. (On the other hand, he would quite possibly have far fewer gray hairs and a happier intestinal tract.)
After reimagining my script and making it his own, Tony's next step was to dispense with the scripted dialogue altogether. Now that he had successfully secured his “Conceived by” credit, Tony Jordan (not his real name) was determined to show everyone that with a director of his genius, no script was really necessary. Far from being banished from the set, however, in the weeks and days and hours leading up to the taping I became the “writer” in name only, and was forced into the role of Tony's stage manager and general right-hand man. Since he refused to ever look at a written word (presumably that would remind him that he had not actually authored our opus), it became my job to follow Tony around with my script and constantly remind him of what was supposed to happen on stage from moment to moment.
As I accompanied the Great Director to meetings and rehearsals all over Manhattan, I became privy to his paranoid fears, narcissistic rage, and irrational demands, and got a first-hand glimpse of his leadership style. James Hillman describes the kind of tyranny Tony employed in Kinds of Power: “From watching TV nature shows, we...tend to associate leaders with the first vulture at the carnage, the large wolf that puts down the younger...challengers. From these TV animals we distill an idea of leadership: power as predation, competition, ever-present danger (paranoia)...threat and warning, tension and stress, survival of the fittest in a hostile environment.” (Pages 148-149) I was rarely a direct victim of Tony's frequent and vituperative abuse of underlings (he fired a young production assistant for forgetting the tomato in his tuna sandwich), though of course my pathetically subservient new role in this enterprise was one of complete emasculation as a writer. Sadly, it was not my first humiliation as a scribe in this business, and it wouldn't be my last, but it was certainly my most pathetic.
Someone else might have simply announced, “Mr. Jordan has made it clear that my writing services are no longer required,” and walked away from it all. Sadly, Dear Reader, the truth is I could not bear to give up the opportunity to work with the legendary theatre artists who were going to participate in this tribute to one of Broadway's great composers. At that time in my life, I was so eager to be part of that world that I was determined to endure the pain of having my work diminished and my dignity stripped. And I must admit I harbored the secret, if naive, hope that by staying with the project I could perhaps keep the ship from veering completely off the course that the original director and I had intended it to follow. Oh, the folly of youth!
One of the things we knew going in, and what helped sell this show to the network, was the caliber of talent our honoree had worked with, some of the greatest singers and actors of our time, legends, in fact. His collaborators, too, had been the most talented and celebrated directors, lyricists and book writers that Broadway has ever known. Though some had passed away (and would be seen in film clips), most were still living and had great affection for the man whose music we were celebrating. Virtually all had tentatively agreed to participate in the special in some way.
But when Tony Jordan entered the picture, he brought all the baggage of his long career with him: All the rage, the poisonous envy, all the slights, the hurts, the grudges he had amassed against most of the people at the top of our talent list. It wasn't just that he bore them ill-will, he categorically refused to work with them. By the time the extent of his hatred became completely apparent, it was too late to get another director and financially out of the question to buy Tony out of his contract, if such a thing was even considered. So instead of some of the stars and artists most closely associated with the man and the music our show was about, Tony promised us B- and C-list entertainers, some of whom were not – ahem – particularly known for their musical talent. Tony had directed their nightclub acts and their summer stock debuts, and they adored him. To be sure, there were a handful of Broadway stalwarts still committed to our show, but most of the high-voltage star power the network had bargained for, and some of the esteemed artists that would have given the show some historical and intellectual weight, were banished.
By this time, the special was well on its way and nothing could stop it. We were still hoping to snag some big names at the last minute, one of the crazy but completely understandable problems of a “live” special. The stars' managers don't say “yes” and they don't say “no,” and you have to be prepared for either event. In the meantime, a Broadway theatre was rented for the taping, music was being arranged, dancers were being choreographed. As it happened, at least two of the “stars” were (grudgingly) hired for the special with less than 48 hours notice when no performers of greater stature could be secured.
Before Tony arrived on the scene, I had spent weeks researching the life and work of the composer we were honoring, interviewing his collaborators, examining every song he had ever written. He had started as a classical pianist, played barrelhouse piano in a brothel, and eventually made his way to Hollywood, writing the musicals of its golden age, and some of the biggest hits of World War II, before having the greatest triumphs of his career on Broadway. It seemed to me his songs told the story of the music of the 20th Century – jazz, swing, pop and musical comedy – and that would be the story of our show.
While that same basic concept was (miraculously) retained in Tony Jordan's “reconception” of the special, he was determined to have all the performers ad-lib their remarks and reminiscences in order to give the show the “spontaneity” he envisioned. If there was anything Tony hated, he kept reminding me, it was people reciting written lines.
Frankly, if you've got a cast from the Groundlings or Second City, ad-libs and improvisation might just be the way to go. But when you've got a cast largely made up of people who have either spent their lives working behind the scenes, or memorizing songs and dialogue written by others – well, there's “spontaneity”, and then there's total anarchy. Not to mention that many of our performers were on the far side of 60, and perhaps not as nimble as Tony's “concept” required. The budget allowed virtually no time for rehearsal, except for musical cues, so our anxious “stars” were shoved on-stage to run through their dialogue while cameras and lights were being adjusted in a frenzy around them. As things spun hopelessly out of control – our seasoned veterans stumbled over their words, talked over each other, and forgot to hit the salient points their song introductions were supposed to make – Tony insisted he would “save it all” in the editing room, where his true genius supposedly resided.
(There were few opportunities for multiple takes, and the few we had offered wildly different, and often unusable, versions. It isn't easy to make talented legends of the theatre look stupid, but Tony seemed perversely determined to accomplish just that. I had previously encountered this type in a film producer I worked with earlier, who was the subject of my first column for HeadlineMuse [see “The Producer”, July, 2000]. This is a director or a producer who literally screws up everyone else's work so that he can come in at the end and save the production in the editing room, and declare himself a genius in the process. Generally, no one is fooled by this process, save for the perpetrator's ownself-delusion.)
Still, there were small victories: By making (and only by making) Tony Jordan think that my ideas were his, most of the musical sequences were performed much as I had originally envisioned them, which was very gratifying indeed. Luckily, I quickly learned that when Tony rejected my ideas, he had an amazingly short memory, and would soon conveniently come up with those same ideas himself.
In one particularly amusing incident of no consequence whatsoever, Tony mentioned to me that one of the stars in the show had asked him to come up with a musical vehicle for her to tour in. I suggested a certain Broadway chestnut that suited her perfectly, and the next day, when the star arrived in her sable coat for the taping, Tony rushed up the aisle of the theatre to her and announced triumphantly for all to hear: “I've just come up with the perfect show for you to do!”, and repeated my exact words to her as if they werehis own. She hugged and kissed him and called him a genius while I slumped down in one of the theatre seats and tried to shut my jaw.
During the taping, whether Tony was on stage with the performers, sitting in the theatre, or standing in a box, he would scream out my name whenever he didn't know what was supposed to be happening – which was all the time, since he refused to hold a script. Consequently, I was constantly rushing from one place to another, answering questions and putting out fires. While he worried about camera angles, Tony had me work intimately with the stars to try to get them to say the right words that he refused to let them memorize in the first place. He had me stand in for a late arrival and pretend to lead a mock radio-show orchestra, and then chastised me loudly in front of the entire cast for failing to conduct on the beat. When Tony plucked a handsome chorus boy out of the ensemble for a couple of lines of dialogue as a 1940's radio announcer, he sent me down to the basement alone with the dancer to conduct an emergency acting lesson. (This chorus boy is now one of the hottest directors on Broadway and in Hollywood. Ten years later we worked together on a film.)
During the three days we taped in a Broadway theatre, Tony seemed to be constantly screaming at the producers and threatening to quit – there wasn't enough time, there wasn't enough money, how was he supposed to work under these conditions?! One time he stood in the balcony, yelling directions to people on stage, and his cordless microphone went dead. He went absolutely beserk and everyone stopped in their tracks and remained in total silence while he ranted and raved, and announced that he was leaving and never coming back if he didn't get a working microphone in thirty seconds. The chickens of Tony's free-for-all conception had come home to roost, and he was in a complete panic. Many of the frightened performers came to me for help, since I was the only one actually holding a script (only a fool would have dared approach Tony while he was having his meltdown). They were confused because they were told not to memorize lines but to speak “naturally” and off-the-cuff, yet they were being asked to mention several things specifically for the continuity of the show. They also had questions about their costumes and make-up, their dressing rooms, their schedules, you name it. I was often sent scurrying to come up with answers.
Luckily, our musical director and our choreographer were two of Broadway's best, and they got everyone through it. I retain some fond memories of sitting in the audience, or standing in back, exhausted, watching the performers work their magic, and those moments make it all seem worthwhile. Sadly, not every performer was “magic”, and one moment that's indelible in my memory came when I was watching an aging legend sing one of her signature songs in a voice that had seen better days. The choreographer came up to me and whispered, “Her voice makes my sphincter tighten.” It was a terribly catty remark, but entirely accurate, and suddenly all of the numbing tension of the previous few weeks was released and I slinked into the shadows convulsed in silent laughter. (Mercifully, the song was later edited out of the special.)
I never saw Tony Jordan again after that, except when I was called into the editing room to write last-minute voice-overs for the many parts of the narrative that didn't connect. The special was aired and was a moderate success, winning an Emmy in one of the music categories. Within five years, Tony passed away, at the age of 61. The cause was never announced, but I will always believe it was bitterness and rage that did him in.
To give Tony Jordan his due, there was a time when his life and career were young, his talent was full, and his future seemed limitless. A time when he wasn't yet the monster he became, a time before he felt his art and his power slipping away. As C.G. Jung says in The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature (p.101), “Art is a kind of innate drive that siezes a human being and makes him its instrument...and it is sometimes so heavy a burden that he is fated to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.” By the time I met Tony Jordan, the vicissitudes of show business had perhaps forced him to sacrifice not only his happiness, but his humanity.
Works Cited
Hillman, James. Kinds of Power. New York: Currency Doubleday, 1995.
Jung, C.G., The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1966.
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