All Roads Lead to Forum

A funny thing happened to the Stephen Sondheim musical ‘Forum’ on its way to Broadway success. It looked very shaky until a hit song was added. Fifty years on Geoffrey Rush has joined the show’s history by starring in a new production at  Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre. Coral Drouyn reports on how all roads have led to Rome for the show and the star.

One of the most delicious elements of life is that we never know the road we will travel until we’re actually on it; and the destination is rarely where we think it will be.

That’s true for an out of work actor; a film superstar, or even Australian of the Year; and Geoffrey Rush has been all three. When Geoffrey was starting primary school in Brisbane, Stephen Sondheim was half a world away, busily writing the lyrics to Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.

When Sondheim had a hit on Broadway, Geoffrey was having fun in the sandpit, and neither one had ever heard of the other. Nor did there seem very much chance of that happening. Karma; Fate; Kismet…they weren’t on the radar back then.

When Geoffrey started high school, Stephen was frantically trying to save A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to the Forum (you’re starting to see where this is going, aren’t you?).

It was the first Broadway-bound musical for which he wrote both music and lyrics, and, to Sondheim at least, his entire future depended on it. He had written the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy, which were huge hits, but this was his Broadway breakout, the chance to go solo…. “Music and Lyrics by…”.

The show was doing miserable business at out-of-town previews. Phil Silvers (the beloved Sgt Bilko) had turned it down because (it’s reported) he couldn’t wear his glasses and was so short-sighted he was afraid he would fall into the orchestra pit.

Milton Berle had pulled out early in rehearsals. As third choice, Zero Mostel, a Jewish comedian and award winning actor who had been blacklisted in the McCarthy witch-hunt, signed on to play Pseudolus, but it didn’t look like being a long run.

Then Jerome Robbins was called in by Hal Prince to help figure out what was wrong. He identified the opening number “Love is in the Air” as being the culprit. The show was a bawdy comedy, and needed an opening number to reflect that. So Sondheim wrote the delicious “Comedy Tonight”. It’s the only song anyone really remembers from the show, but it’s so great that it arguably saved Sondheim’s career.

Forum is still Sondheim’s most commercially successful musical, even though he was probably the only one involved who DIDN’T get nominated for any awards. It settled in to a three year run on Broadway, unaware that a smart, slightly geeky, schoolboy on the other side of the planet was already taking the first step on a collision course.

Geoffrey Rush had never heard of the show at that stage, he was busy making his way through high school: a high school that had no drama or music programmes, in fact nothing to stimulate an introspective teenager.

Rush, and some of the others who needed a creative outlet and liked showing off, took to making up plays in the lunch and mid-morning breaks, acting them out for fellow students. Eventually the group legitimised itself as a Drama Club and, by the time Geoffrey was 16, he was the treasurer for the drama club, responsible for the Year 11 production of Arsenic and Old Lace.

It was a portent of things to come when he started producing films. Those early forays into acting became an obsession. This was what he wanted to do; NEEDED to do.

University did nothing to steer him away from the calling. He immediately joined the drama club, and even sang with the a’capella group. I’m reliably told there was even a stint as a singing telegram boy (remember those?).

Gradually word spread and when the Queensland Theatre Company was forming in 1970-71, a certain young G. Rush was on their list of new actors to see, and wound up making his debut in 1971…. Yet another step on that road to Rome.

In 1972, in a 10^th anniversary Broadway revival, Phil Silvers DID get to play Pseudolus…with his glasses on. Not that it mattered to Geoffrey Rush. He was starring in his first musical at QTC, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, as Snoopy.

He delighted audiences, myself included, with his tail wagging buffoonery (surely the tallest dog of all time, towering over the other cast members when upright) and the magic he brought to the song with such lines as “Isn’t it remarkable that things turned out so well.” If only Snoopy had had a crystal ball, he would have seen how remarkably well things would turn out in the future.

Flash Forward: Sondheim had a hit song with “Send in The Clowns” and wrote some of the greatest musicals ever seen on the stage…  A Little Night Music, Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Assassins, Into the Woods…we all have our favourites (mine is Company).

Sondheim was the undisputed doyen of Musical Theatre by the 1990s. And in Australia, after returning from two years in Paris studying mime (not much to say about mime) Geoffrey Rush was earning a name for himself as one of our best character actors.

But great character parts don’t grow on trees, no matter how well you cultivate the soil. Then came the offer of Shine – a film with the character role of a lifetime: David Helfgott. For Director Scott Hicks and writer Jan Sardi there was no other actor to even consider once they had seen Rush. But that commitment made the project doubly difficult to get up, because they needed overseas distribution to bankroll the film, and no-one wanted to finance a difficult subject with an “unknown” actor….especially when there were so many “stars” available. (Can you imagine, theatre and film lovers, anyone…and I do mean ANYONE…other than Geoffrey Rush, giving that performance?) Hicks stuck to his guns “No Rush….no Film” and the rest is history. Geoffrey even had a gentle dig at the non-believers in his Golden Globe speech.

Hang on….what about the Road to Rome?

In 1996, when Geoffrey appeared on Sondheim’s radar for Shine, Geoffrey, himself, was in America accepting every award for great acting ever invented. And he just happened to take a night off to go to the theatre. The show he saw was A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum, with Whoopi Goldberg replacing Nathan Lane. It struck him what a great non-gender comedic role it was…a joyous part to play.

So here we are in 2012, the 50^th Anniversary of the original Broadway opening. Geoffrey Rush is now a true superstar, but still a man willing to forgo the millions in favour of the quality of the work.

Some pursue money and fame….others pursue excellence. And his extraordinary generosity towards the Australian industry means we all benefit from that.

From the moment Geoffrey and Sondheim met by chance in a lift in a London hotel, there was only one way to travel to Rome … together. Producer John Frost and Director Simon Phillips made it happen, at least that’s what we all celebrate. But I prefer to believe that Calliope, Terpsichore, Thalia and the other muses of theatre and music were having a party some fifty years ago and said…  “What’s the most fun you can possibly imagine in theatre? Take your time…there’s no Rush.”

Now we all get to share the joy of what the Gods set in motion.

A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to the Forum plays at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne until January 6, 2012.

Originally published in the November / December 2012 edition of Stage Whispers.

Earlier Coverage

Media Preview - Photos and Videos

An Afternoon with Stephen Sondheim

Q & A with Christie Whelan-Browne

Forum Fever

Official launch with Cast Photos

Video - Meet the Cast of Forum