December 10, 2004

BY HEDY WEISS THEATER CRITIC

Mike Nichols arrived in Chicago on Thursday to begin technical rehearsals for "Monty Python's Spamalot," the musical by Pythonite Eric Idle and John Du Prez inspired by the hit 1975 film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Asked if it was the secret dream of every serious theater and film director to stage a Broadway musical, Nichols snapped back with an answer worthy of Mel Brooks:

"As I can tell you from my early experience when I directed 'The Apple Tree' [three one-act musical plays he staged in 1966], if Hitler were alive you would want him to be out of town with a new musical. For a director, a musical is a special kind of hell, and I can tell you why, based also on my experience helping Peter Stone save 'My One and Only' [the 1983 show starring Tommy Tune and Twiggy]."

Nichols, of course, is being playful in his urbane, coolly self-dramatizing way. Though the 74-year-old director is still in the midst of a publicity blitz for his latest film, "Closer," an anatomy of adultery based on Patrick Marber's hit British play -- and though he has just emerged from some "touch-up" microscopic surgery for a nagging disc problem in his back ("these brilliant doctors fixed my body, which was in a hideous shambles") -- he was in high spirits and sounded full of energy.

'MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT' When: Previews begin Dec. 21; opens Jan. 9 and runs through Jan. 23 Where: Shubert Theatre, 22 W. Monroe Tickets: $25-$87 (limited seats available) Call: (312) 902-1400 THE CHICAGO CONNECTION Michael Igor Peschkowsky, who would come to be known as Mike Nichols, was born in Berlin on Nov. 6, 1931. At age 7 he emigrated with his family to New York to escape the Nazis. His father died just a few years later. Nichols arrived as a scholarship student at the University of Chicago in the early 1950s, began acting there in productions directed by Paul Sills and, between 1953 and '55, became part of the Playwrights Theatre Club, which David Shepard operated on the North Side. It was in 1953 that Nichols also met his longtime comedic partner, actress-writer Elaine May, and began working with Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris and others. In the summer of 1955, Shepard founded the Compass Players (a forerunner of the Second City), an improv-based cabaret troupe in which Nichols and May did some of their most brilliant early work. Nichols appeared in a production of "Waiting for Godot" at the now-defunct Studebaker Theatre in 1957. That same year, he and May headed to New York, earning raves in their debut at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel. They proceeded to travel the country with their groundbreaking satirical routines and became a featured duo on television and radio. By 1960, those routines were packaged for Broadway, where "An Evening With Nichols and May," directed by Arthur Penn, catapulted them to fame. Their shared act ended in 1961. Their friendship endures. In fact, when asked who he might call on as an objective judge for "Spamalot" once it gets on its feet, Nichols did not hesitate for a second. "Elaine May," he said. "She is always my third eye. Always has been and always will be the most crucial visitor. But she hasn't seen it yet. Nobody has." Hedy Weiss

He readily admits that "Spamalot" is a "strange show," one in which "you laugh and laugh, and at the same time don't know why you are so moved."

"I think part of it has to do with the love we all have for this material and some glory and joy that simply comes in doing it," he mused, making no specific mention of the lunatic notion of generating the sound of horses' hooves by clopping together the shells of halved coconuts.

"But part of it -- and Eric [Idle] will kill me for saying this -- has to do with there being something very deep about it, miles and miles below the surface, because it does really consider the extent of human cruelty. Of course finally it's about the material first created by some insanely funny and highly intelligent, very well educated people."

So. Back to the matter of what makes musicals so difficult to do.

"It's this," Nichols said. "If you make any change in the staging, you have to make a change in the orchestration, and that takes five days to happen. In the meantime, you're rehearsing one version by day and seeing the version you hate each night in previews. Then, after you finally get the new version into the show, for about three days it actually looks worse than what you had, and it's not until about the ninth day in all this that you realize the changed version only looked worse because it was so new. And then you can finally move on.

"Meanwhile, you can only admire the poor actors more and more because they are doing one version by day and another by night, and they rarely fall to the floor sobbing in confusion or exhaustion. At the same time, by taking out one little thing that feels wrong, everything else just jumps and stretches and comes alive. And suddenly there's God. That's what I love so much about directing, whether in the theater or in the movies."

And it all comes down to some very basic things, as Jerome Robbins, the man Nichols refers to as "my hero in musical theater," often demonstrated to him.

"I think Jerry understood that mysterious bastard form we call the musical better than anybody," Nichols said. "I still remember how he came in to see a preview of 'The Apple Tree' in which there was a scene in which Eve gave Adam the apple and he immediately reached down and covered himself with a towel. He said, 'The reason you're missing the laugh at that moment is that the towel is the wrong color. It shouldn't be green; it should be orange, because that's a faster visual clue.' And sure enough, we got an orange towel and it worked."

Nichols saw Robbins do much the same instant analysis during a panicky moment early in previews for director George Abbott's production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."

"At tryouts in Washington, D.C., they called Jerry in for advice, and he told Sondheim he needed to write an opening song that would say to the audience, 'You're in good hands, we know what we're doing, and what we're doing is THIS.' That's when Sondheim wrote 'Comedy Tonight,' and the problem was solved."

Nichols recalled that while still at the University of Chicago, he saw a production of Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker," directed by Tyrone Guthrie and starring Ruth Gordon.

"In fact, I saw that show three times, and by the third time -- about 20 minutes into the first act -- I thought: Now I know what style is. It's starting something in such a manner that what needs to happen later in the show can come straight out of that beginning. And you can't fake it; it must all really unfold in front of the audience."

These are the life lessons that Nichols has brought with him to his work on "Spamalot." Yet the "Eureka!" moment can sometimes come out of the blue.

"I knew the material for this show was hilarious and that I laughed at it all the time," the director said. "But I still had to know that crucial thing: What is this show really about?

"And then, about one minute and 15 seconds into the first reading, Tim Curry pronounced his lines: 'I am King Arthur and these are the knights of the RHOOOND Table.' And then I had it. It was that upper-class accent that Tim, who is such a brilliant actor, knew to use instinctively. The way he pronounced that one word reminded me that everything English is, finally, about class. I knew where to go from that moment on."

MIKE NICHOLS DIRECTS (THE SELECTED WORKS)

THEATER