Theater: Selling Short

Martin Short first tumbles onstage dressed in a white Little Lord Fauntleroy suit and looking like the sort of kid Spanky used to make fun of in the old Our Gang comedies. He’s playing Noble Eggleston, a pampered rich boy so accomplished he goes to both Harvard and Yale. Short moves on to impersonate an assortment of characters, from a wheezing old millionaire to a dictatorial German film director. He sings; he dances; he makes costume changes so fast even David Copperfield would be envious. Is this the hardest-working man in show business? Little Me was created in 1962 as a vehicle for Sid Caesar, who played seven different roles. For the new Broadway revival, Short plays eight.

It’s a daft, inspired, yet miraculously unhammy star turn. Short doesn’t merely show off his versatility (how about that German accent, folks!); he creates a string of finely crafted caricatures. Truth be told, the Neil Simon-Cy Coleman-Carolyn Leigh musical hasn’t aged all that well. Based on Patrick Dennis’ satiric memoir of a fictional grande dame of the stage and screen, it’s too sketchy and weightless, with a rather severe dramatic flaw: the central character (played by the full-voiced, full-figured Faith Prince) is constantly upstaged by her multi-role-playing co-star.

But the show has some funny, scattershot gag writing reminiscent of Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, on which Simon once worked (“But, Mother…” “Don’t ‘But, Mother’ me.” “But, Father…”). Director-choreographer Rob Marshall moves the pieces briskly in everything from the perky Rich Kids Rag number to a chain-gang soft shoe. Most of all, there’s Short, who gives the kind of knockout Broadway performance that delights us even more because it’s delivered by an interloper from Hollywood.

Lots of his sort have been interloping lately. Jennifer Jason Leigh is playing Sally Bowles in the acclaimed Broadway revival of Cabaret. Nicole Kidman is about to take the town by storm in David Hare’s The Blue Room. Christian Slater, Toni Braxton and Holly Hunter are among the other film and recording stars currently giving Broadway a whirl.

Why do they come? On the stage they make less money, have to work harder and risk getting creamed by the critics in a rare sector of show biz where critics can still matter. A Short answer: “The theater,” he says, “is the ultimate reconfirmation of why you even started out to be an actor.” The Canadian-born comic began his career on the Toronto stage, appearing in shows like Godspell (with Gilda Radner) and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown before moving to the U.S., where he became a chameleonlike star on SCTV and Saturday Night Live. He’s had a respectable movie career as well, but his occasional stage work–notably in the underrated 1993 musical The Goodbye Girl–showed off the kind of effortless song-and-dance talent that in another era would have made him a huge Broadway star. “I know very few actors who started off saying ‘I’m going to be a movie star’ or ‘I’m going to be a television star,'” says Short. “There’s something about going back to the actual reason that you want to be an actor that is awfully good for the soul.”

And hard on the back. Doing eight performances a week in probably the most grueling role on Broadway is not exactly a guest shot on Letterman. Short, 48, spends half an hour on the stationary bike to warm up before each performance, talks as little as possible during the day to save his voice and has pretty much eliminated a nightlife in order to stay healthy. “You really have to live like a monk to do this show,” he says.

Another strain is being apart from his wife Nancy and three children (a daughter, 14, and two sons, 12 and 9), who live in Los Angeles and can visit only on holidays and occasional weekends. Short is eager to get back to L.A., where he will be host of a new TV talk-variety show in the fall, but if Little Me is a hit, he may be persuaded to stay past February, when its scheduled run is to end. And that may necessitate another heart-to-heart talk with his daughter.

A few months ago, while she was reading in her bedroom one night, he went in to break the news that his stint in New York City would keep him away past Christmas. “She had just got reading glasses,” he recalls. “She very hiply pushed them down her nose and said, ‘Well, you know you have to do it. It’s what you do.’ And I thought, Oh, boy, have we done a great job with this kid!” A terrific father too–that makes nine roles.

–Reported by William Tynan/New York