It can be dangerous to go see your friends in plays. I mean, what happens if the whole evening exudes the distinct aroma of fetid mackerel? What do you say to them when you see them after? Do you lie your butt off and say it's Tony Award material? Or do you try to get away with some non-committal statement that they'll (probably) eagerly infer is praise? In the past, I've gone the latter route and tried to get by with lines like…
- "It was an evening I'll never forget!"
- "Only you could have done this!"
- "You made such interesting choices!"
- "Words are inadequate to describe what I'm feeling at the moment!"
- (My favorite:) "Of all the evenings I've spent in the theater, this was certainly one of them!"
Fortunately, I needed no such dodges last night when I saw my pal Jim Brochu in his new one-man play, Zero Hour. Jim knew the late, great Zero Mostel and has now managed to magically — don't ask me how — turn himself into the guy. The play takes the form of a long interview with Zero, conducted in 1977, just before he was to begin rehearsals for a play called The Merchant. Unmentioned in Jim's text is that Mostel was stricken during those rehearsals and never got to open in that play.
During the two-or-so hours Zero discusses his life, his capricious stardom, the tragedy of blacklisting, the near-tragedy of a bus accident that almost cost him his leg, his marriage, his fatherhood, his major roles, his painting and most of all, his anger. The play is at times very, very funny and — at times — very, very sad. Best of all, Jim captures the basic absurdity of the way the man thought, rambling from topic to topic, going from non sequitur to non sequitur and having them somehow flow logically from one to the next. It's probably as close as you could ever come to spending time with the genuine article. Jim even re-creates Mostel's testimony before the Senate subcommittee and throws in a few choruses of "If I Were a Rich Man."
Should you be in or around Hollywood through mid-August, I suggest you go. It plays at the Egyptian Arena Theater, which is an annex to the famous Egyptian Theater movie palace up on Hollywood Boulevard. Details can be found here. And if you're not in this area, just wait. I have a feeling Jim is going to be doing this all over America before he's through.