Hughie

[edjames]

This one act play by Eugene O'Neill stars Forest Whitaker as Erie Smith, a down and out drunk and gambler who is staying at a run down hotel in the Times Sq area.

Essentially a monologue, Erie discovers a new hotel night clerk in the lobby and relates his tale of his friendship with the former clerk, Hughie, recently deceased.

The play is over before you can blink an eye. It runs about 55 minutes. Not a lot of bang for yer buck. And, as evidenced by the number of empty seats, it hasn't yet sparked a lot of interest. The guy in front of me was completely bored. I found it compelling but without a lot of depth.

The good news is Forest turns in a good performance and unlike recent stars such as Pacino or Willis, there was no evidence of any audio or video assistance to help him through his lines.

His costar Frank Wood has little to do except sit on his stool and feign complete and utter disinterest to Erie's tale of woe.

The show's been done on Broadway before, in 1996 with, Pacino. Other versions starred Jason Robards and Ben Gazzara.

[edjames]

While there were no bluetooth devices, teleprompters or other evidence in view, he did go to the water cooler once during the performance I saw...

 

ENTERTAINMENT

 

 

Broadway star Forest Whitaker is taking his lines from a water cooler

By Michael Riedel

 

February 18, 2016 | 6:47pm

 

 

Forest Whitaker in "Hughie." Photo: Marc Brenner

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MICHAEL RIEDEL

 

Forest Whitaker’s co-star for the first week of previews of “Hughie” on Broadway was . . . a water cooler.

 

During those rocky early performances, Whitaker didn’t stray too far from the cooler, which — in what I believe may be a Broadway first — talked back to him.

 

The chemistry between the Oscar-winning actor and the vintage 5-gallon Kelvinator was, I’m told, intense.

 

Whitaker, alas, is yet another movie star who’s having trouble remembering his lines. And since “Hughie” is essentially a 65-minute monologue by Eugene O’Neill, there are a lot of lines.

 

A stage manager was by the cooler, script in hand, to feed him the lines. (I originally heard the stage manager wore a wet suit and was in the cooler, but I couldn’t confirm that.)

 

I know this is old school, but I think actors who star on Broadway in front of audiences shelling out $150 or more for tickets should know their lines.

 

Granted, not everyone can be Nathan Lane, who shows up the first day of rehearsal off book. But I’ll say this for Whitaker: He refused to use Bruce Willis’ earpiece from “Misery” or Al Pacino’s teleprompters from “China Doll.”

 

“He’s a method actor,” a source says. “He would never rely on technical devices.”

 

Whitaker was in better shape this past week, and has put some distance between himself and the cooler. He still wanders over to it, but that’s part of the blocking.

 

The cooler, sources say, has spoken very little lately.

 

But here’s the trouble with not knowing your lines — it hinders you from nailing the character. Director Michael Grandage, who’s shown with “Frost/Nixon” and “Red” that he’s no slouch, is working overtime to get Whitaker up to snuff by the time the critics arrive. (“Hughie” opens Feb. 25.)

 

Whitaker was slated to perform Thursday night before a starry crowd — Edie Falco, Sting, Carla Gugino, Christian Slater and Kiera Chaplin, granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin and great-granddaughter of O’Neill. All were guests of Harvey Weinstein, who was throwing a post-show bash for his pal Whitaker at the Elyx House.

 

First performed in 1958, “Hughie” takes place in the lobby of a shabby New York City hotel. Whitaker plays Erie Smith, a small-town hustler who’s down on his luck. Done well, the play is a poignant character study of one of life’s losers. Done poorly, it’s excruciating.

 

The best “Hughie” I’ve ever seen was Brian Dennehy’s. He knows the world of O’Neill better than any actor alive. Dennehy paired the one-act with Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape,” in which he was equally brilliant.

 

Whitaker is doing only “Hughie.” Which is probably a good thing: If he had to memorize another play, he’d have to hire another water cooler.

 

 

This sounds like fun: The Civilians is doing a cabaret show at the Metropolitan Room on Tuesday called “Let Me Ascertain You: Flops, Failures and Fiascos.” It’s based on interviews with showbiz people who were caught up in disastrous productions. There’s a section on “Dude,” a classic 1972 floparoo by the creators of “Hair.” And there’s a montage from all the vampire shows that shriveled up on Broadway — “Lestat,” “Dracula” and “Dance of the Vampires.”

 

Full disclosure: The Civilians interviewed me about the night director David Leveaux knocked me to the floor at Angus McIndoe after I made fun of his all-Presbyterian production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

 

I have an extra ticket. I’m going to invite David!

[TruHart1]

Ah. Mr. Riedel. If only he understood what "irony" is all about!!! :eek:

 

TruHart1

[edjames]

Tepid reviews.

 

NYPost Elizabeth Vicentelli says:

 

Forest Whitaker may have won and Oscar (for "Last King of Scotland") but his Broadway debut is largely inconsequential - he brings no heft or height to the part of a small-time gambler in Eugen O'Neill's two hander, "Hughie." His parts been played by tough-guy likes of Al Pacino, Jason Robards, and Brian Denneh and Whitaker's soft-toned take is intriguing - but it also recedes into the gorgeous set. Better luck next time.

 

 

 

Review: In ‘Hughie,’ With Forest Whitaker, Two Desolate Lost Souls

By BEN BRANTLEYFEB. 25, 2016

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Forest Whitaker in “Hughie.” CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

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The dim and cavernous hotel lobby is, as one of its two inhabitants puts it, “about as homey as the morgue.” But for Erie Smith, the fidgety man who comes up with that desolate description, this morgue is the only place to be.

Outside there’s the brusque and bustling city, New York in 1928, where unfriendly creditors wait in ambush for him; upstairs, in Room 492, there’s the silence of the bed, where unwelcome thoughts can echo until they deafen. But here, amid the shadows of a deserted antechamber, a guy like Erie can pretend — at least fleetingly — that his life counts for something.

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In Michael Grandage’s gentle, churning dream of a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie,” which sighed open on Thursday night at the Booth Theater, Erie is portrayed by that excellent actor Forest Whitaker, in a transfixing yet modest Broadway debut. Mr. Whitaker provides all the anchoring physical detail that you might expect from his meticulously observed screen performances (“Bird,” “The Butler”).

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Hey Sport! Know Your Old New York Slang?

Lingo of the 1920s is back on Broadway. Test your knowledge, with help from Forest Whitaker.

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Clad in an off-the-rack sporty suit that aspires to jauntiness but might well double as his pajamas, this Erie is a creation of solid, sometimes sweaty flesh, replete with subtle tics and quirks. Yet as you watch Mr. Whitaker pacing, twirling, brooding and taking endless inventory of his pockets before an impassive audience of one (a somnolent night clerk, embodied by a perfectly cast Frank Wood), you wouldn’t be surprised if he just evaporated before your eyes.

This is not to suggest that Mr. Whitaker is low on stage presence. But instead of cranking up the heat and the volume in the way you associate with barnstorming star turns, he gives the impression of someone who always feels the tug of invisibility, of nothingness. As Erie natters on in an eager, fitful string of clichés, bringing to mind the sort of garrulous salesman you’d normally cross the street to avoid, Mr. Whitaker quietly breaks your heart.

“Hughie” is, by many measures, a slender offering from a playwright best known for density and heft. O’Neill is the man who gave us such lumbering colossi of the theater as the “Mourning Becomes Electra” trilogy, “The Iceman Cometh” and the ultimate American drama of domestic pathology, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” which is being revived on Broadway this spring.

In contrast, “Hughie” feels as vaporous as smoke, though the kind that might come from an opium pipe (to use a favorite O’Neillian image). Written in the early 1940s as a relief for O’Neill after the heavy lifting of “Journey” and “Iceman,” “Hughie” lasts only an hour in performance, and it has the poetic single-mindedness of a short story.

O’Neill had envisioned it as part of a series of plays to be grouped under the title “By Way of Obit.” But “Hughie” is the only one that survives, and he had doubts about its suitability for the stage.

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[edjames]

CLOSING!

MICHAEL RIEDEL

ENTERTAINMENT

 

EXCLUSIVE

 

Forest Whitaker’s Broadway embarrassment ‘Hughie’ is closing early

By Michael Riedel

 

March 3, 2016 | 6:35pm

 

 

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Forest Whitaker in "Hughie" on Broadway. Photo: Marc Brenner/Polk & Co. via AP

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MICHAEL RIEDEL

 

Goodbye, “Hughie”!

 

The revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie,” starring Forest Whitaker, will close March 27, The Post has learned exclusively.

 

This dreary drama about a small-time hustler was slated to run through June 12, the day of the Tony Awards. It’s the first flop of 2016 and an acute embarrassment for Whitaker, who’s making his (truncated) Broadway debut.

 

The first week of previews was disastrous because the Oscar winner (for “The Last King of Scotland”) didn’t know his lines. He made several trips to an onstage water cooler — and not because he was thirsty. A stage manager with a script was hiding near the cooler and, loudly enough for the audience to hear, fed the stumbling actor his lines.

 

Directed by Michael Grandage, the production received mixed reviews, including a surprise ravefrom Ben Brantley in the New York Times.

 

The producers hoped the review would turn things around. To keep the show afloat, they asked everybody, including Whitaker, to take a pay cut. Whitaker resisted at first, but when he learned that fellow actor Frank Wood, as well as the creative team, said yes, he relented.

 

“He wanted to be a team player,” says a source.

 

Well, he picked a losing team.

 

The collapse of “Hughie” is yet another example of how impotent critics are these days. The good reviews did nothing to boost the box office.

 

Sources say “Hughie,” a two-character play, will lose more than $3 million.

 

The producers declined to comment on the early closing.

 

Whitaker must shoulder much of the blame for this fiasco. He signed up to do the play more than six months ago, so there was no excuse for him not to know his lines at the first preview, especially with ticket prices upward of $150.

 

His hapless performance that first week triggered poisonous word-of-mouth. He had his lines by the second week, but the damage was done. The word on the street was that even though “Hughie” was only an hour, it felt longer than “The Iceman Cometh.”

 

Listen up, all you movie stars who are thinking about doing a Broadway show: LEARN YOUR LINES!

 

Since this is becoming a serious issue — Al Pacino used teleprompters in “China Doll,”Bruce Willis had an earpiece the size of a piece of cauliflower in “Misery” — I plan to start attending early previews of shows featuring Hollywood stars.

 

I’ll bring the damn script and call out the lines myself if the actors don’t know them.

 

Call me the prompter police!