Liyah

Songs in a Hat “There are forty-two songs in the hat, from my Broadway musicals and my concerts. It’s the most fun thing I do on stage because I never know what I’m going to sing, and that takes all the pressure off. The other shows are structured: there’s a song, a bit of dialogue, a certain atmosphere. This is wonderful chaos. I never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes I even let the audience choose. But we only sing the songs that come out of the hat.”

Patti Lupone made her Broadway debut in 1973 in Chekhov’s 'The Three Sisters'; since then, she has alternated between straight plays and musical theater, and it is in this genre that she has achieved her greatest successes. But she is critical of Broadway’s evolution over the past half-century: “There are still vibrant and exciting productions; but what bothers me most is the volume—everything is too loud. It’s as if they think we’re deaf, and we’re not. I don’t know at what point the sound department became the center of the music, but for me that’s the biggest change in musical theater; the volume on stage is excessive.”

“I hope the audience doesn’t forget what their responsibility is: to listen and not expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter—and that takes effort.”

The audience, he adds, “has a hard time listening these days; and it depends a lot on what you’re going to see. If you go to musicals like 'The Rocky Horror Show', you know it’s going to be loud. If you go to see plays like ‘Death of a Salesman’ or ‘Little Bear Ridge Road,’ people sit down and listen. I just hope the audience doesn’t forget what their responsibility is: to listen and not expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter, and that requires effort; I saw that when I watched ‘Death of a Salesman.’ There was absolute silence, and it moved me deeply. I thought, ‘This is the theater of the 1950s.’ Back then, people came to the theater to learn, to be transformed. That still exists.” Although, he laments, “it’s also become a bit of a circus.”

He doesn’t miss singing when he does straight plays. “No! It’s much easier!” he laughs. And he explains why he thinks musical theater resonates so deeply with audiences. “We all sing. It’s an intense form of expression that goes straight to the heart. Obviously, a spoken-word play can be just as moving thanks to the story, the acting, or the staging. But I think that in musicals, people are looking for precisely that emotional intensity.”

Great Women The artist has portrayed great women, both real and fictional: Evita, Fantine, Mrs. Lovett, Maria Callas… Is there one who has left a special mark on you? “They all come from within me. After reading the scripts and listening to the music, I connect with different emotions or aspects of my personality. That’s what I love about acting—it’s a kind of therapy; every time you work on a specific emotion or idea, you discover something new about yourself. Whenever I go on stage, I learn something new or refine something I already knew about myself. It’s all about practicing, practicing, and practicing some more. Just like with our own humanity: we have to constantly understand and refine it.”

In Spain, there is still—albeit to a lesser extent—a distinction between “actors” and “musical theater actors,” which in many cases carries a tone of condescension toward the latter. Patti LuPone makes no distinction between the two, and insists that all characters are approached with the same rigor in both straight theater and musical theater… “As long as they’re well written. I start with the lyrics; if I can understand them and build a story from them, the process is exactly the same as in a play. For example, ‘Gypsy’—the musical by Jule Styne and Arthur Laurents. It has the best libretto ever written for a musical and could stand perfectly well without the music. It’s a full-fledged play. And that’s how we rehearsed it. Due to financial constraints, we worked without music for a while alongside Arthur Laurents. We recited the lyrics instead of singing them, and it was extraordinary. Because, at its core, it’s a play. And I approach it exactly the same way.”

“I don’t mean to say there aren’t any brilliant composers anymore; I’m sure there are. What I don’t know is what Broadway producers are looking for these days.”

She says wistfully that musical theater used to be better than it is now. “We had Meredith Willson, Jule Styne, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Hart… Then came Stephen Sondheim, who brought a musical quality and a genius that we don’t have now, at least not in such an obvious way. I don’t mean to say that there aren’t brilliant composers anymore; I’m sure there are. What I don’t know is what Broadway producers are looking for these days. I see musical parodies like ‘Schmigadoon!’ or ‘Titanique.’ Then there are the musicals with big voices, like ‘Chess,’ ‘Lost Boys,’ or ‘The Rocky Horror Show.’ But it’s all so loud, I insist, that you can’t hear either the music or the lyrics.”

In 1985, Patti LuPone starred in the premiere of a musical that has stood the test of time and become a theatrical phenomenon of extraordinary proportions. Did she have a hunch it would be such a massive hit? The artist nods. “When Cameron Mackintosh offered me the role in New York, he played me four bars of the French recording, and that’s when I realized it was going to be a hit.” She shrugs when asked what she thinks makes it so special. “I don’t know. Maybe the humanity of the story. Why were people crying? Because it’s timeless. And also Trevor Nunn and John Caird’s production. It was extraordinary. And we had actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company. The book, the music… In modern musicals—and that’s another problem today—you can hardly hum the melodies anymore. In contrast, everyone recognizes the music from 'Les Misérables'.”