THEATER people have a lot to apologize for these days – and I’m not talking about the quality of their shows.
Some say “I’m sorry” with dignity and find that their apologies have been accepted.
But others offer apologies that fall far short of the mark, and they continue to find themselves ostracized backstage.
Take, for example, Ned Beatty of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” the Big Daddy with the Big Foot in his Big Mouth.
Last week, Beatty sent letters of apology to his “Cat” co-stars Ashley Judd and Jason Patric for telling The New York Times that he didn’t think they had the chops to do stage work.
Rather than retract those remarks, however, he simply told the two movie stars he was sorry if his remarks had “upset them,” production sources say.
As a result, he still finds himself iced out backstage at the Music Box.
Patric, one person says, won’t even look him the eye.
I ran into Patric the other night at Angus McIndoe’s restaurant and asked him what Beatty said in the letter.
“Nothing of worth.”
Now, for an example of someone who owned up to poor judgment and has been forgiven by the person he offended.
David Richenthal, the producer of “I Am My Own Wife,” ran an ad in the Times yesterday that praised his own show at the expense of another.
The ad reprinted The Wall Street Journal’s rave for Doug Wright’s play. Trouble was, that rave also contained some swipes at Tony Kushner’s musical, “Caroline, or Change.”
“Take a social worker to ‘Caroline, or Change.’ Take yourself to ‘I Am My Own Wife,'” the Journal’s critic, Terry Teachout, wrote.
He added, “Unlike Tony Kushner, Mr. Wright dares to tell squirmingly uncomfortable truths.”
Kushner was not pleased to see Teachout’s jabs reprinted in the ad for “I Am My Own Wife.”
“The theater is a very small world, and you can’t kick somebody in the slats like that with impunity,” he told The Post. “It is just not done. They had a lot of nice stuff they could have lifted from that review without having to quote the words of a right-wing nut like Terry Teachout about my show.”
Richenthal called the ad “a bad lapse of judgment on my part. I should not have run it, and I apologize to Tony. No one should advertise a show at the cost of another show.”
He added, “I happen to be a fan of ‘Caroline, or Change.’ “
Kushner accepted the apology.
“It’s over and done with,” he said.
And he added, “I saw ‘My Own Wife,’ and I loved it.”
Next week: Neil Simon apologizes to Mary Tyler Moore for saying she couldn’t learn her lines.
Just kidding!
IT’S got snob hit written all over it.
The National Theater’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s “Jumpers,” one of the hottest tickets in London last summer, will probably open on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theater in the spring.
First, though, it must clear a hurdle: Actors’ Equity, which has been asked to approve the transfer of the production’s 21-member British cast, including critics’ darling Simon Russell Beale.
“Jumpers” cannot be recast with American actors because its director, David Leveaux, won’t have time to work with new performers since he is tied up staging the $8 million revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which opens in March.
And so producers Bob Boyett and Bill Haber are hoping to work out a deal with Equity: If they are allowed to bring the “Jumpers” cast over here, they’ll ship a show with an all-American cast over to London at some point. I’m tempted to suggest “Dance of the Vampires” or “Frog and Toad” – two of their biggest hits – but that would be a cheap crack that has no place in a classy column like this one.
Haber and Boyett, who have a first-look deal on just about everything the National does, are also planning to bring Michael Frayn’s brilliant political thriller, “Democracy,” and the revival of “Mourning Becomes Electra,” starring Helen Mirren, to Broadway next season.