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by Charles Battersby Television viewers might recognize Marc Kudisch as the "TV Guy" from his long-running series of Toyota commercials, or perhaps even as the S&M freak from his episode of "Sex And The City." Theatergoers, on the other hand, will know him from a long-running string of shows on Broadway and throughout the country, including his Tony Award nominated role in Thoroughly Modern Millie and a Drama Desk nominated performance in the revival of Assassins. During a rehearsal for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mr. Kudisch found a few minutes to speak with me.  Jan Maxwell as Baroness Bomburst and Marc Kudisch as Baron Bomburst in “The Bombie Samba” dance number from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Joan Marcus Charles Battersby: I do want to talk about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in a moment, but first I want to talk about the year that's led up to this. You've been really busy. Marc Kudisch: Yeah. It's just honestly because I'm a workaholic, and because I've been blessed with being offered some cool opportunities. CB: Speaking of cool opportunities - you had been listed to appear in Wall to Wall Sondheim, for Stephen Sondheim's 75th birthday. MK: Neither Raul [Esparza] or I could do it because we were in tech here. We were doing our first run through that night ... I rehearsed with them 'cause it looked like it might fit in the schedule. In the end I wasn't able to do it. CB: But you did get the chance to do A Little Night Music in Los Angeles last summer, though [a transfer of the 2003 NYC Opera production, in which Marc also appeared].
CB: You were in Assassins long enough to get nominated for a Drama Desk Award. MK: Assassins was one of those very rare experiences in that, from the beginning - I mean right from the first rehearsal until we opened - it was probably the calmest process I've ever been through for opening a show. Even for a revival, for that mater. I'm not particularly sure why. I think maybe we were all very aware of the piece, and aware of our good fortune in it. And I think early on we were aware that this was going to be a piece of art and that we were doing a piece that was very risky: a piece that is its own entity; there's nothing else like it. And it doesn't apologize for itself. When you do something like that and you embrace it, it's a very calm experience. It's a fine piece, not just in terms of the music, but the book, I mean John [Weidman]'s book, the content of what they were talking about. We were all so respectful of each other; we got along brilliantly. When you've done a lot of shows, you know that when something like that comes along, it's a rare opportunity. The first night we performed in front of an audience, it was electric and it never stopped being that. The idea of the role of The Proprietor really was just an idea, it wasn't a role that existed in the way we ended up doing it. It was an experiment. In the original production, that character opened the show with "Everybody's Got the Right," then it was an ensemble track. It was Joe [Mantello]'s idea to make it a through line and keep him a constant, almost a yemeni to The Balladeer. I had two dinners with Joe and talked about what the possibilities would be, and what the risks were, obviously. If Stephen or John didn't like the idea of what we were doing, it could easily have been scrapped. So it was a risk, I didn't know what the job was when I took it, to be quite honest with you. I had ideas and Joe certainly had ideas. There were no guarantees. Which is how I was able to get that out to into Night Music. And it turned out to be phenomenal and fantastic fun and intriguing. The week after the Tonys, we recorded our album, and a week after that was when I left the show. I was supposed to be leaving for a leave of absence and then come back, and then, of course, when I was in Los Angeles I got the call that we were going to close, which was ... not right. I had never been in a show that was applauded so heavily, never been in a show that got reviews like that. I've never been in a show that was so universally applauded like that in my life. And the show was sold out every night. What it was, is a risky piece. It speaks in a very bold vernacular. It speaks in its own bold voice. I think it was a wild card, I think they never knew what to expect each week. The single ticket sales on it were phenomenal, but the longevity was in question, because you never knew. It didn't have a group sales impact. You know what I mean? CB: It didn't appeal to busloads of tourists. MK: Exactly. I don't think anyone expected Assassins to do as well as it did. There was nothing mixed about its reception. Forgive me, I'm fiercely proud of it. We all were. I think its demise was too early. Not that that's finger pointing. It's just an unfortunate situation that we're at on Broadway nowadays, that people want original stories, intelligent complex pieces. But Broadway has become an enormously big business. And the risks are even greater - the rewards can be greater, but the risks are greater as well. Without the Roundabout, [Assassins] would have never been produced - my personal feeling is that they closed it too early - but at the same time, the fact that it ever even ran at all ... without the Roundabout standing behind it, without Todd Haimes constantly supporting and defending that piece, it would have never been produced on Broadway. And it was, for a brief, incredibly shining moment. There's nothing better than that. There's nothing to be more proud of than when you have an experience like that. This is sort of a tangent, but thank God for Lincoln Center, producing Adam Guettel's new piece [The Light In The Piazza]. Even though it's based on a film, it's his music and his unique voice. And Michael John LaChiusa, such a new voice. He has a lot of stuff coming up soon. Whether or not it'll be on Broadway is questionable. Because he's a risk factor - it's his own unique voice. His music is stunning but it's also complex. And it's challenging to an audience, which means ultimately that it's a risk. Producers are dropping $10-20 million for a musical. People want to know that they're not spending their money foolishly anymore. CB: It's become a business as you said. MK: It's BIG money business. Come on, Lion King has pocketed over a billion dollars worldwide, so far. Think about that. A billion dollars. Very few films can say that, and it's still making money. No, it's not as immediate as a film - a film can open in a weekend, make two hundred million dollars. But a musical can continually run and continually generate income. Why do you think more and more films are being made into musicals, and it's the movie studios that are behind them. It's big business and it's getting bigger. Lord of the Rings was just announced ... at $22 million. I cannot even fathom it. But that's where we're going. And that's not to say it's bad, it's just that it becomes a challenge to continue to do the kind of work that some of us set out to do.
MK: It was funny because, after we finished Night Music, I was fully intent on staying in LA, because I knew I had Chitty and I knew I had five months off. I went back to NY just because I needed to do some stuff, and I called Michael John and I said "I'm out of work for five months and I think I might go back to LA, and he said, "Well ... we're doing this piece down at the Signature Theatre, would you be interested in doing Van Gogh in it, for all of five cents a week?" And I immediately said "Okay!". One, because it's Michael John. Two: Because I'd always wanted to work for Eric [Schaeffer] at the Signature. I had so many friends who'd worked there. Three: Because it's Van Gogh. That's a dysfunctional individual. I wouldn't mind going down that path, and that's what I mean. I like stuff like that. I'm not a leading man. I'm not a Type A personality. I'm an actor and I'm a character actor, and anything that I can do to be different from where I was before is something that always intrigues me. Every role is different. I've been fortunate to have been able to carve out my own little sort of type, because the stuff I do is, like, weird. CB: You spoke about not being a leading man, but you've done a lot of roles where you're this dashing fellow, but there's a goofiness behind it, like Gaston in Beauty & The Beast, which brings us back to the big business of theatre too. MK: Well, listen; I've got nothing against money. We all like it. But you can make money and still be artistic. Everything is possible that way. I had originally auditioned for that, a long time ago. I wasn't necessarily ready. The person who played the role originally was Burke Moses, and he was brilliant. He established a structure and a creation that everybody followed from there. I was lucky enough that I came in early to replace Burke when they were going out to Los Angeles. It was eight or nine months after they had opened, so I went in with the original company. I remember when I saw the film originally, I was on the tour of Bye Bye Birdie, and we all went to see it when it opened. I saw that character and thought "Oh God if they ever make a musical of this, I'd love to do it." Who wouldn't? I like to play characters that are self-deprecating in some way. I like playing characters that will end up not as they expect. Maybe the audience expects they're gonna end up that way, but they don't expect it. CB: My favorite number in that show is the "Gaston" song where all the townspeople sing about how great Gaston is. All the while he has no clue that he's just this oaf. MK: But his vanity ... he's not a stupid character. It's very easy to go that route with those kinds of characters. Gaston's not stupid, he's just so vain that he's blind. He's blind to his own fault. And when he's exposed he in turn exposes his true belly, which is very mean and nasty. I like finding the flaw of a character and absolutely exploiting it. My favorite line in the show is when Belle says to him "Gaston, you're positively primeval." And he says, "Why thank you." And it's not that he doesn't understand it, he completely does. That's a compliment to him. She means it as an insult and he takes it as a come on. CB: People who've only seen the cartoon may not know that the show put back in a couple of songs, including one called "Maison De Lune" where we see that evil and the crafty side you just mentioned. MK: And cowardice. There's a certain cowardice there, too. He has to get someone else to do the dirty work. A bully is generally someone who is a coward in one way or another.
Carl-Magnus is just honest. He has affairs, he tells his wife, she's his cohort. He has a philosophy of life that is different, and some people see that as arrogant. But I find him to be quite honorable. But he's also a stiff man; it's very hard for him to move from his philosophy. So a small bend is a lot for him - anything more and he would snap. And he does. I like that. That's fun. Who doesn't want to play characters on the edge of something? Van Gogh. There's a man that just was an edge. But with an innocence, at least the way that we portrayed him at times. When you find the simplicity of a character, the human quality to a character. Van Gogh was selfish, he saw himself as a Christ figure. And this is true, mind you. When he was living in Arles he bought twelve chairs for his room because he wanted to create a new studio for his twelve apostles. He actually wrote to his brother "I want you to be one of my twelve apostles." This was a man who definitely saw himself as the savior of art. Everyone hated him. Everyone hated him in Arles. The town literally wrote him a letter and everyone signed it, asking him to get out. But there was something pure in him. But again, the fun of playing Van Gogh: How do you find the innocence, the naiveté, the innocence of this man, and then with all other crap on top of it, you still care. And you're not apologizing for it either. It's fun. CB: Do you think Conrad Birdie has a similar sense to him? MK: Of course. Conrad Birdie is the most innocent person on that stage. When I did Birdie, my image of that character was Mike Tyson. CB: That's an interesting take on him. MK: Well I'll tell you why. [Tyson] was the best at what he does. He was raw sheer power. He was a force. Put him in the ring and he was the most electrifying thing to watch. No one wanted him to talk, and everyone made fun of his lack of social grace. But that's not what he's a creature of. He's not a creature of society. And then what did society do? They chewed his ass up. And that's the truth. What we do to our icons - Look at Michael Jackson. Look at Elvis. We help that along. And Conrad Birdie to me was like a young Elvis, or a young Mike Tyson. Raw pure energy. Stick him on a stage and let him sing. Don't let him talk, don't let him mingle. He's a social klutz that way, but he's an innocent, he's just being himself. And he's being marketed to someone else's benefit, ultimately. Now that might be a little analytical of it, but Conrad Birdie says three words in the first act. Other than that, he sings. This is a man who doesn't get to speak his mind until the second act. And what does he say? "I wanna go out. I wanna find me a coupla young chicks. I wanna have some fun." And I love that about him. All he wants to do is go out, have a steak, have a beer, have a couple of girls on his arm. He's not talking about going out there and doing something nasty-bad. He wants to, you know, make out with girl. Have a steak and a beer. What kid doesn't? And that's all he is, really. A kid who happens to have a talent for something. He's an innocent. All those people who freak out about Conrad Birdie, that's their issue, not his. That's what I loved about doing that show. CB: Did you hold that philosophy during the made-for-TV version of Bye Bye Birdie? MK: Sure, absolutely. Trouble found him, you know what I mean. But that's a certain lack of a social grace. Look, this is a white trash kid who happens to have a real honest flair for something and they're sticking him out in the middle of everybody, and then you're apologizing for who he is. He wants to have a little fun, do you blame him? And that's the way that I like to look at that character. Otherwise, it became like the [1963] film. I know a lot of people loved the film, but I just felt the film made fun of him. I felt that the way they portrayed Birdie in the film was a little ... slick. And that's not to say that that's not a way to go. But for me, and I mean personally for me, I found that they were making fun of it. It was almost a comment as a personal feeling about it, as opposed to "This is just who this guy is." And I think maybe I get the kind of jobs that I get because I have my own warped way of seeing things. I don't think anyone else would have maybe thought of that. I don't think people look at things the way that I do when it comes to those kind of roles. CB: The role that you're taking on in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Baron Bomburst) was made famous by Gert "Goldfinger" Frobe. MK: Yeah, isn't that great! CB: It is (Gert Frobe accent) "No, Mr. Bond I expect you to die." MK: But even for him, I'm sure that a part of the reason he did Chitty was that it was a wonderful homage to Ian Fleming, and Chitty was the last thing he wrote. And it made sense that the fantasy bad guys in Chitty would be the fantasy bad guy from James Bond. And it was a wonderful send-up of himself. CB: When you play the role, are you doing an homage to Goldfinger, or are you doing something completely new? MK: Something completely new to me, something completely new to this particular show. It's been running for three years, but our takes - myself and Jan Maxwell who plays the Baroness - on the Baron and Baroness are ours. Completely. CB: I'd also like to speak with you for minute or so about your Tony nomination. MK: Shoot.
MK: Another example of a character who doesn't end up the way he expects, and/or the way an audience expects. It's a deceiving role; I think people look at that and think of it as a leading man. He's not; he's a character. Look at him, he's the foil of the show. That's what I end up playing always, the foil. CB: That does seem to be a theme. MK: It's - I don't know, my personality and/or the way I look at things. I like to make fun of myself. But I like a little bite. I like edge. And I definitely like anything that's unapologetic. The great part of Millie is that he was an operatic character trapped in a musical. Graydon is earnest and forthright, and passionate about the way he feels about things. Then Miss Dorothy walks into the picture and he completely melts. And becomes, essentially, an idiot. But he doesn't end up with the girl, which is mind-boggling to him. Not out of vanity, but because that's his rules of life. He was heroic, he fell in love, he went to save her. I guess he just never counted on someone else doing the same thing. That's why I say he's an operatic character who always end up saving the girl or being heroic or something like that, but he's trapped in a modern musical where those laws do not apply. Because when he saw Miss Dorothy with Ching Ho at the end, you felt bad for the guy. That always made me smile on a nightly basis, that people would laugh at that moment and also be like "Awwww ..." because you liked him. But you don't feel that bad. It's just fun. It's unexpected. I enjoyed doing that show a lot. CB: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang starts next week, but you already have something lined up after that. MK: Joe is a piece I've been working on as director with these two guys, Dan Lipton and Dave Rossmer. Really talented writers. It's about a child star who grows up hating musicals, and he wakes up one morning and his life is a musical. Which is a very funny premise, but it actually goes deeper than that. It a wonderful piece, but it's challenging because it doesn't make fun of musicals in as much as it uses the musical as an alternate reality. Okay, so this is your reality, what do you do? Do you ignore it? How long do you go on ignoring what's going on in your life? When do you finally accept, when do you finally embrace, when do you finally open up? CB: That's a very universal theme, not just something for this story. MK: Absolutely. It has a little color of Groundhog Day to it. It has a little feeling of A Christmas Carol to it. I also think the great thing about this particular musical is, it shows you why people sing. It shows you why musicals are great. It defines that. We always make fun of it because people just suddenly open up and sing. Okay, but people have sung for years. Why? Instead of making fun of it, why not actually got to it? Explore the possibilities. What if life were a musical? CB: The full title is Joe!" The Musical with an exclamation point. MK: Yeah, it's about him. And it's a wonderful image these guys have had for years. An empty spotlight, and a man who's afraid to step into his own spotlight. CB: So what else do you have coming up? MK: The 4th of April I'm going to be doing "Broadway by the Year" [At Town Hall]. CB: That's the musicals of 1945 if I recall. MK: Yes, 1945. I'm singing pretty much all of Billy Bigelow's music [from Carousel]. All of it. We're going to do the whole "If I Loved You" sequence and "Soliloquy" and "Highest Judge," which is usually cut from the show. Which I don't understand because I love it, I think it's a great piece of music. I think because it's difficult to sing. CB: And, workaholic that you are, you're squeezing this performance in on a Monday while you're in previews for Chitty. MK: Here's the deal, seriously. I love saying this. I'm not a leading man. So I've never played Billy Bigelow, I will never play Billy Bigelow. But vocally it's such beautiful music, such wonderful music. And I am that kind of baritone. To have the opportunity to do that in "Broadway by the year" over at Town Hall, off mic. You know, ya do it. It's a wonderful, pure form of entertainment, the "Broadway by the year" series. They choose a year and Scott Siegel gives you all this wonderful background history about the year and how the musicals got made and what was going on in society at that time. It's history, and it's not trying to be anything else. It's offering up that year - what shows were playing that year. What shows won, what didn't. I did 1960 with them, which was the year of Camelot, Bye Bye Birdie, Do Re Mi and Most Happy Fella. Think about it. All those shows in the same year. That's what I love about the series. It's great to hear what was in a season. To learn the history. I love history. I think anyone who wants to do this, before you can decide that you're going to be the future of music theatre, it's good to know the past of it, so you know where you stand in the present. I've been lucky. I've worked with Comden and Green, I've worked with Kander and Ebb, I've worked with Sondheim, I've worked with Michael John LaChiusa. I've had the opportunity to work with three generations of writers. I mean, Comden and Green, they built this ship - 1943 was Oklahoma!, six months later was On The Town. I got to work with Adolph on his last show, that revival of On the Town - God rest him. We're losing our Titans, the people who created the universe. Eventually we'll loose our Greek Gods. It's a craft, an art form that has a history that I think is important to remember and respect. You think of the "bench scene" [from Carousel] and what a stunningly beautiful, musicalized scene that is, and I don't care that you're singing - it's a scene. It's a beautifully written scene. It's something that we should continually try to aspire to. It's possible. Musicals are as sophisticated, if not more, so than any play out there. No one can tell me that there's any difference between a soliloquy in Shakespeare, an aria in an opera or a song in a musical. It's all the same. CB: Do you feel that there's a strong belief that that's not true? MK: I believe that there is a belief that Broadway musicals are big and splashy to make money. That it's not as important to be accurate or decisive with the book because the audience is going to be forgiving, or they really don't care, they just wanna hear the music, they wanna see people dance. It's not like I'm pointing a finger at any particular show at all. I just think that because of the money that goes into making a Broadway musical nowadays, you're really trying to please the general population. Think what succeeds compared to other pieces that are more esoteric or analytical or darker, more complex. It's a challenge. Everybody talks about "Broadway's dying, it's not what it used to be." But where's the support? Someone tries to write something new, someone tries to write something daring ... I remember when we did The Wild Party. Both Wild Partys in the same year, which I thought was totally exciting. Everyone was like "Oh this is terrible, this is wrong." Why? There used to be two Hamlets across the street from each other all the time. Why can't there be two Wild Parties? I think it's magnificent. Go see 'em both, go see the same story told from two totally different points of view, and neither of them is wrong. That's fantastic. That's a gem in the theatre world as far as I'm concerned. More and more it's become about the sensationalism and the gossip. The antics, or the backstage story, as opposed to the musical itself. Where's the support for someone trying and maybe not succeeding totally? If anyone else had written Bounce, it probably would have been thought of as one of the best musicals of the last decade. But because it was Stephen Sondheim who wrote it, who now has to battle with his own icon ... CB: ... being a Titan, as you said. MK: Yeah, exactly. So anything he writes, especially now - I mean, my God, we treat him in so many ways like he's already dead. Every year they give him monstrous celebrations - 12 hours of Wall to Wall - but the man is still writing. The man is still creating. The man still has the right to try and possibly - I don't want to say fail - but possibly not be as brilliant in some people's minds as he has been in the past with other shows. He has the right to write another Merrily We Roll Along, which, when it opened, everybody was like, "What is this?" and now of course, everybody talks about as one of his most brilliant pieces. He has the right to be creative and write something that doesn't appeal to everyone. George Wolfe, one of the finest directors ever on Broadway, whether it be a play or a musical ... CB: ... Caroline, or Change didn't get commercial success when it moved to Broadway ... MK: ... but it was brilliant. Maybe not for everybody but, gosh, an original story. Brilliantly beautiful, different, exciting. Gorgeous characters. I just remember when he did On The Town, which may not have been his greatest success, but at least he tried. He tried something different with it. He wanted to try something and everyone just jumped all over him. The guy's had one so-so piece after having exemplary productions, and being the Artistic Director of the Public Theatre, and resurrecting it. And they jumped on him for one thing. Since then, look at all the exemplary pieces he's created. Where's the support? I'll probably get a lot of people yelling at me for what I say. But it's how I feel. I take what we do very seriously. I am a career stage actor. I have chosen musical theatre because I love it dearly. I love to sing. I love that form of expression. I like to make people laugh. I like to scare the shit out of people. I like to make people cry. I like to do those things. Do you know what I mean? I like to laugh, I like to cry, I like to be scared shitless sometimes. I like to be moved. I like to share that experience with an audience, which is a different personality every night. Because never again will you have those two thousand people in a room together. It's a unique experience every night. You're sharing with people you don't know, in a dark room and your all sharing an experience together. It's exciting; it's a privilege to do this. And I think it's something that takes craft, that takes discipline, and respect - respect for your fellow actors, respect for your audience. If you're going to step on a stage, you have to have the tools for it, or you should work hard on those tools. This is just me. I'm not pointing fingers. I take it seriously. I love it. I'm not running around in LA looking for movies and TV because I love what I do here. I love Chitty. It's mystical, it's a fantasy. And not just for a child, but for the child that exists in every one of us, and that's why I wanted to do this. CB: Is it something that you loved from your childhood? MK: Absolutely. Are you kidding me? When I got this job I was like "Oh my God! I get to be the Baron!" I grew up with this film. When I was a kid I had a metal Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with the cloth wings, and everything that popped out. Nowadays it's plastic, but when I was a kid it was metal and cloth. When this show first opened in London, a friend of mine was going over there, and I was like "You gotta go get me a Chitty!" I was doing Millie at the time and right there on my dressing room table for six months was a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Not that I had any inkling that I would be doing it. I just love Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And Roal Dahl (Original Chitty screenplay), what a fantastic storyteller. The best stories are childhood stories, because they're everyone's stories. Look at Harry Potter, look at Lord of the Rings, look at Lemony Snicket. They're all children's stories and they appeal to everyone. Look at animation today. The Incredibles is the best movie of last year, as far as I'm concerned. And it's not just for kids. It's for everyone. But it instinctively affects the child in each and every one of us. My hope is that when parents come and see the show, their jaws are going to be just as slack as the kids in the audience. They'll get just as much out of it. There's a bit of innocence that we adults don't get to walk around with in our cynical lives. But it's still there. It's deep down inside and you can let it out when you're in that dark room, surrounded by other people who are also letting it out for a couple of hours. That what makes it worthwhile. CB: This has been an amazing interview. Is there anything else that you want to talk about? MK: No. Outside of all that, I'm pretty boring. Marc Kudisch an be seen as Baron Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Hilton Theatre, now in previews and opening on April 28.
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