Forever Angela

[Ed. Note: Ten days after the following interview took place, it was reported that Angela Lansbury will co-star with Marian Seldes in Terrence McNally’s Deuce, a play about two retired women tennis players who once made up a championship doubles team. The production is set to open on Broadway at The Music Box in May; it will be directed by Michael Blakemore.]

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If you play your cards right and you have enough cash on hand, you can be present for the great Angela Lansbury’s long awaited return to Broadway in a very special, one-night-only event. The four-time Tony Award winner for Mame, Dear World, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd will grace the stage in This Is On Me: An Evening of Dorothy Parker, to be presented on Sunday, November 5 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre as a benefit for The Acting Company.

Prior to that, on October 23, Lansbury will participate in the company’s Masquerade Gala. She will present the John Houseman Award to Patti LuPone, who gave a critically acclaimed performance in Lansbury’s original role of Mrs. Lovett in director John Doyle’s recent Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, the enormously popular Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical (based on a play by Christopher Bond) that will soon become a Tim Burton film starring Johnny Depp. I recently spoke with the beloved stage, film, and television star about these events and her future theatrical plans.

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THEATERMANIA: Miss Lansbury, I’m aware that you did the Dorothy Parker program last year in Los Angeles. How did it go?

ANGELA LANSBURY: It was very well received. Obviously, the audience was familiar with her writing, and it rang a lot of bells for them. There was something extraordinarily unique about Dorothy Parker. I had the joy of knowing her and her husband in the late 1940s and early ’50s, though I was very young at the time. She was around and about at various parties and gatherings; I was just beginning to read her work then. She was a woman who wrote caustically, wittily, and funnily about life, sex, romance, and all the rest of it — and she did it better than anybody else.

TM: What type of material is included in the program?

AL: We’re going to be reading mainly from her articles and critiques in The New Yorker, but also from some of her more thoughtful pieces. She wrote so many diverse and interesting things; I think her story “The Big Blonde” is a marvelous example of her ability to be so funny even though she was a troubled and terribly sentimental woman underneath all of her humor. Her writing has a lot of heart, and that’s what makes it resonate for every generation. The girls who will be working with me are very skilled actresses and farceurs: Harriet Harris, Lisa Banes, and Lynn Collins. We also have Boyd Gaines, who’s wonderful. Victor Garber did the show in L.A., but he can’t be with us this time because he’s got a big, spanking-new television series.

TM: How did it come about that you’ll be presenting the John Houseman Award to Patti LuPone next week?

AL: My brother Edgar was the original president of The Acting Company. When he called and asked me to present the award, I thought it was a marvelous idea. I did see [John Doyle’s] Sweeney Todd, and I absolutely adore Patti. The production didn’t begin to approach the kind of breadth that ours had, but Mr. Doyle’s take works like gangbusters. I was enthralled by it. Of course, Steve [Sondheim] was enthralled by it, too. He always used to say to me, “You know, this should have been done as a chamber opera.” As I said, you really can’t compare Doyle’s production to ours; between you and me and the gatepost, I did miss the orchestra and the wonderful [Jonathan] Tunick arrangements. But what Doyle gave us was the piece boiled down to its essence, and I thought it was staggeringly entertaining. I was fascinated by the actors playing the instruments — and I thought Patti playing the tuba was hysterically funny.

TM: Do you tend to see subsequent productions of shows in which you originally starred?

AL: No, I really don’t. I did see the first London production of Sweeney Todd [in 1980] on opening night, and I was very disappointed, indeed. They had an erroneous idea of how the show should be done; it was played as a musical comedy. The British would probably say, “Well, you were far too serious about it. Christopher Bond wrote a very funny play.” But that wasn’t the approach that Stephen and Hal [Prince] took with the musical.

TM: I was fortunate enough to see the show a few days after it opened, and I’m so glad your performance is preserved on the video of the touring production.

AL: I think my performance shocked some people because it was in opposition to everything else that was going on, but I thought it was terribly important to lighten the piece. If I hadn’t gone that route and cut up as much as I did, I think it would have been more difficult for the audience to swallow. Sweeney Todd was the hardest work I’ve ever done, but also the most meaningful.

TM: Do you suspect that it will make a good film?

AL: I would have thought it wouldn’t, but that’s based on the production that I participated in. I know the movie is going to be quite different, and it may just work like mad.

TM: You recently got an apartment in Manhattan. Do you consider yourself bi-coastal now?

AL: Yes. I’m definitely going to be spending much more time in New York.

TM: Do you think there might be a run of a Broadway show in your future?

AL: You never know! I won’t necessarily come back in a musical, but it’s possible. I am still singing. I’m going to sing a song to start off the Dorothy Parker evening: “Just One of Those Things,” which has a reference to Parker. Cole Porter wrote it when she was in her heyday. It’s a great old song!