Mapquest, Google Maps and my GPS all swore to me the drive to Riverside would take one hour and five minutes, the liars. Well, maybe if you were going via rocketsled at 4 AM. Carolyn and I left Los Angeles at 3 PM and we got where we were going about 5:35…and here's one of those odd coincidences. My friend Gregg Berger and his dazzling spouse Dora were among the friends who'd decided to all caravan down there, rendezvous for a 4:30 supper and then go over and see Frank Ferrante do his Amazing Groucho Act at the Fox Performing Arts Center. As I was finally (finally!) on the off-ramp for the 91 Freeway, I was cell-phoned by Gregg who told me that he was just getting off the freeway…and then he noticed that he was directly behind my car. We were both, simultaneously, an hour and five minutes late.
So were writer Paul Dini and his extraordinary wife, magician-actress Misty Lee. So were writer Earl Kress and our pal Mark Nelson, who among his other endeavors is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of Magical Arts (i.e., The Magic Castle in Hollywood). Here…I'll get ahead of the story and show you a photo of all these folks. I know it's small but most of the guys aren't that good-looking…
The guy in the tux at left is Jim Furmston, who's Frank's musical director and on-stage foil. To the right of him is Mark Nelson. I'm in the suede jacket. Earl Kress is in front of me while Paul Dini and Misty Lee are on either side of me, behind. Frank Ferrante is presumably the one who looks frighteningly like Rufus T. Firefly and then, left to right, we have Carolyn Kelly, Dora Berger and Gregg Berger. Gregg, in case you don't know, is one of the top voice actors in the business.
(Quick aside about that suede jacket: I bought it around 1990 or so at the Rochester Clothing Store on 52nd Street in Manhattan. I tried it on and asked the salesguy, "How does this look on me?" One of the other customers volunteered, "That looks great," and asked if they had one in his size. The other customer was, so help me, Rush Limbaugh. I thought you might enjoy hearing about the last time he was right about anything. Well, anyway, I wore the jacket often until around '95 when I'd put on sufficient weight that it no longer fit me and it went into storage. Among the happy "marker" moments of dropping all that poundage a few years ago was that I got the jacket out of mothballs and it not only fit, it's actually a tad big on me.)
Getting back to Riverside: The theater was showing Duck Soup before Frank's performance but given our late arrival, we had to opt out of that. It would have been nice to see it on a big screen with a live audience but it was nicer to dine at leisure with friends. Then we hiked over to the place in the top photo and took our seats along with hundreds of other folks…including a few who didn't come up to me before the show, after or during intermission and tell me, "I heard about this on your blog." The ones who said it at intermission or after all added some version of "…and boy, you were right about this guy." That alone made the Bataan Death March on the Pomona Freeway almost worth it.
Frank was great. As usual, he hopped up on stage as Frank Ferrante, said a few words and proceeded to transform, not unlike Don Blake morphing into The Mighty Thor, into Julius "Groucho" Marx. The main difference, of course, is that Groucho is more powerful and godlike. It was the fifth time I've seen him perform and easily the best…and the most extemporaneous.
In a couple years of plugging Ferrante incessantly on this site, I've received 50-75 e-mails from folks who've been to see him and have written to tell me how much they loved the experience. I've received a grand total of one from a disappointed attendee, and he was mainly bothered that not everything that seemed to be improvised was. The answer to that (of course) is that, first of all, not every alleged ad-lib out of the real Groucho was created on the spot, either. Not only did he have secret writers on the quiz show but improvisation is often a function of rapid memory; of quickly pulling up the perfect line at the perfect moment. That's especially true when — and this is my second point — situations reoccur. Frank is well into his third decade of doing this act. When he asks an audience member, "What do you do for a living?," one out of twenty or so is going to say, "Lawyer." So out come the lawyer jokes. They may well have been on-the-spot inventions the first time they were uttered but now they're part of the repertoire.
I think I can tell the difference between a line that's recalled and one concocted for the moment. There were a lot last night in the latter category. At one point, Groucho/Frank went to fling himself onto an onstage sofa as Mr. Marx was wont to do. A huge dust cloud, probably visible from the balcony, burst forth. Frank broke up, the audience howled…and he did about five minutes on how the theater crew hadn't been able to find a proper couch in Riverside and had actually trucked this one in from a warehouse in La Mirada. For the rest of the show, every time he went to sit on the couch, he seated himself ever-so-daintily so as to not raise more dust. The whole evening was like that and we all laughed a lot. A lot.
Now, this is where I'd ordinarily tell you to rush to see him if and when he comes your way…and if you're anywhere near Longview, Washington, you can do that next Saturday. But outside that area, you may have a wait. Frank has another gig so his next scheduled Groucho appearances aren't 'til November — in Pomona, New Jersey and in Clinton Township, Michigan. If any pop up before then, I'll let you know here or you can occasionally check his schedule. Then maybe you can have an evening as much fun as the one we had last night…especially if you can manage to avoid the Pomona Freeway on a late Friday afternoon. I'm amazed I'm not still there.