by Jon Cryer
Okay, I’ll cop to some adulation. David Quinn and I truly were unlikely rock stars that last year.
But in my heart of hearts, I know those kids were really just my ever-aspiring Stagedoor friends and colleagues, the outcasts and oddballs I’d gone on an already exciting journey with, and who were now excited that I was headed off on an adventure many of them could only hope to go on. They just wanted to wish me well. To which I give a heartfelt thanks.
And lastly, with regard to the bonkers, vivacious, theatrically nerdist, insanely creative, and life-changing experiences that were my summers at Stagedoor Manor, I say . . . remember, the suicide subway jump was mine.
Chapter 4
The Fat Man Sits in Row H
My Shakespeare summer at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London was all about the technical approach to acting. After Stagedoor, where a cursing, wild-eyed, but caring Jack Romano scared the shit out of you until you found that deep thing inside you that could be externalized in a character, the Brits focused on the external, the ways your speech and body could bring a role to life. At RADA, the goal was to aspire to a character’s dramatic heights, rather than let the character grow out of you.
A movement teacher named June Kemp taught us mask work, for instance, in which we’d wear classical masks with twisted expressions, and it was our job to inhabit that expression with our body. It came off as unnatural at times, but that seemed to be the point.
In prepping a monologue once, this director who smoked like a chimney and never flicked his ashes persuaded me to make some pretty theatrical choices.
“Okay,” I said, “but that doesn’t seem like reality.”
“Why should an actor be stuck with mere reality?” he said. “We’re all agreeing to pretend here, so why not?”
It was hard to argue with logic like that, even from a man with a lap full of fallen ashes. That time in London very much helped free me as an actor, especially the encouragement to embrace the outlandish.
On the weekends I’d venture to the West End, the center of theater culture in Britain, and see as many shows as I could afford. Once I’d come to an understanding of the differences of the British process, my enjoyment of theater took on a new dimension. I sat awestruck by performances like Rupert Everett’s in Another Country at the Greenwich and Bob Hoskins in the National Theatre’s production of Guys and Dolls. Huge acting choices coupled with real and raw emotion. I developed a reverence for the work that was going on in the West End, and hoped someday they’d let me tread the boards there.
But upon returning to New York, I concluded that Stagedoor and its adrenaline-driven program of study/work/experience taught me more, and had probably prepared me better for whatever lay ahead. Although for the moment, what lay ahead was a senior year at Bronx Science (ugh), working as an usher at the Equity Library Theatre (money), and going out on auditions (yay) that didn’t yield anything (sigh). My mother’s manager, Marty, even offered to help me find an agent.
Something would happen; I was sure of it. I just didn’t know when.
It turns out the “when” was damn quick. A funny thing began happening as I’d escort people to their seats at the Equity. Occasionally patrons would smile and giggle at me, as if I’d said something amusing, and we all know how amusing, “Seats eleven and twelve are right here, ma’am,” can be. Figuring these people were just eccentric theatergoers, I thought nothing of it. Then I’d get from the same giggling smiler: “You were wonderful in the show.” This was often whispered conspiratorially, as if I were supposed to say the other half of some espionage go-code—“The fat man sits alone in row H”—and begin discussing a scheduled assassination.
Instead, I’d just reply, “Thank you? That’s kind of you, but I’m not in the show.”
When it happened a couple more times, I finally got more information.
“I loved you in Torch Song Trilogy!” someone said.
“Great!” I said. “I haven’t seen it.”
“What are you doing up here?” was what came back at me.
“No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t joking. I haven’t seen it.”
“You’re not Matthew Broderick?”
Ah.
Do yourself a favor, before you think I’m overstating this. Check out the photo insert. In 1983, I looked like Matthew Broderick. Same rosy complexion, same dimply smile, same devastating handsomeness. Matthew was becoming the toast of Broadway, having followed a New York Times–noticed run as Harvey Fierstein’s gay adopted son, David, in the off-Broadway production of Torch Song Trilogy with the lead role of Eugene in Neil Simon’s soon-to-premiere play Brighton Beach Memoirs. He’d even made a couple of movies, Max Dugan Returns (also written by Simon) and an upcoming summer flick called War Games. I was jealous, of course, because everybody was saying this guy was amazing. I ran over to the Alvin Theatre, where Brighton Beach was set to open, stared at the big posters outside, and thought, “Okay, I get it now. He looks like me. Or I look like him. Or I need to talk to my mother about my birth. Or Matthew’s mother. Or, if there’s more of us out there, the CIA.”
In any case, a ball started rolling. I was walking down One Hundred Fourth Street with my mother one day when we ran into an old friend of hers, an actor named Peter Ratray, who was then appearing in Torch Song Trilogy. He asked if I’d been going out on auditions, and I said I had, but with no bites.
He said, “Well, you should audition for Torch Song. There’s a part you’d be perfect for.”
Peter said he’d put in a good word for me if I’d get my agent to make a call. (And I now had one, thanks to Marty, who was also now my manager.) Then I could come in and audition, because they were getting ready to mount a tour of the show, and Fisher Stevens, who had taken over the role of David, wouldn’t be going on the road with it.
I was riddled with nerves on the day I went to the Helen Hayes for my audition. So it was especially disconcerting to walk out onto the stage, ready to read, and be met with a guttural gasp from the seats that sounded like a dying vacuum cleaner, but was most discernibly frog-voiced actor/author Harvey Fierstein in a state of shock. After I went through the scene with the reader, Harvey introduced himself and apologized, saying, “I’m sorry. It’s just that you look so much like Matthew Broderick, I honestly thought you were him for a minute.” Although I was tempted to imagine elaborate pranks I could play on unsuspecting theater geeks with my gasp-inducing looks, I focused on my audition. I felt good about it, too. They were very nice to me afterward, and wanted to get to know me a little bit, which is a big indicator you’ve auditioned well.
On a high, I went that night to see Brighton Beach Memoirs and thought it was fantastic. It was a long play, but it had rich humor, great family dynamics, and wonderful performances, especially from Matthew, who was completely funny and engaging. He was a revelation, really, and though I got a few more pangs of jealousy, I was also motivated to be as good as he was. Well, somebody must have been able to read my mind, because the next day I got asked to audition for Brighton Beach Memoirs, too, to understudy Matthew. This was, to put it mildly, a lot of stuff happening very fast, but it was what I lived for.
The day after my audition for Brighton Beach, Marty called, and he had a sound in his voice I can only describe as insanely giddy.
“Jon,” he said, “you got the Torch Song tour! They really want you!”
I could not believe this. My amazing week was getting more amazing-er. Amazeballs, the kids today might say. The blood was rushing to my face, and I was grinning wildly. “That’s fantastic, Marty!” I yelled.
“But that’s not all,” he said. “The show you auditioned for yesterday? Brighton Beach Memoirs? They just called. They want you to understudy for Matthew Broderick on Broadway.”
Okay, you have to understand. My only performance experience at this point was Stagedoor Manor. I was still in high school at the time. I
was an eighteen-year-old routinely met with dubious looks from Mrs. Tsaggos in social studies when I’d tell her I was going to miss her class because I had an audition. I had just gotten the phone call to end all thoughts of dubiousness.
I was speechless. Marty countered the silence by laying out my choices. “You could be the understudy to a lead on Broadway, with a shot at taking over for him when he’s done, or you could go on tour with Torch Song Trilogy.”
Once I got over how incredible this day had become, I began seriously thinking about the options in front of me. Torch Song offered guaranteed performing; Brighton Beach was an offer to wait patiently in the wings. Torch Song was a supporting part; Brighton Beach was a lead. Torch Song meant dropping everything and leaving New York for new horizons but surely plenty of adventure, while Brighton Beach didn’t necessarily have to disrupt my life at all, and I could finish high school, which I didn’t want to leave.
But only one was Broadway, the Great White Way, the apex of the American theater world.
“Broadway,” I told Marty.
When I told my mother the big news, she was proud and excited, and fully supportive. Gretchen Cryer was in no way one of those showbiz parents who dissuaded her kids from going into the family business. She knew how gung ho I was, how much enjoyment I got from acting. Her attitude was, “Well, of course they’d hire you!”
When I started prepping for Eugene, I fully expected to be nailing down the part in rehearsals with all the principals, the ones performing it night after night. I thought I’d be in the trenches every day with them. After all, wasn’t it most likely—if I ever had to jump into the role—that I’d be doing it with them? But the reality was that there were only two rehearsals a week, and they were with every other understudy, a sort of B-team get-together. For such a huge part, it didn’t seem like a lot of time. Six weeks in, with only twelve actual rehearsal days, I was showing up still not knowing all the lines. In my defense, a lot of Brighton Beach is Eugene, and in monologue, and there’s a lot of Brighton Beach to begin with—the show regularly ran two and a half hours.
I was feeling pretty good, though, the day director Gene Saks came in for a full-dress run-through with all the understudies. Afterward I waited patiently for feedback, but Gene had no notes for me. The other actors got notes—more this, less of that—but I was left alone, to which I surmised, “Nailed it!” I went home that day with visions of elated theatergoers exiting the Alvin on some future night, convinced they’d seen a new star being born as they clutched a little slip of crudely scissored paper that read, “Tonight, the role of Eugene will be played by Jon Cryer.”
The next day I was heading out to go to rehearsal when my manager, Marty, called me. “Can you come to my office?” he said, his voice unusually scratchy.
“I’m supposed to go to rehearsal,” I said.
“It’s more important that you come to the office.”
As I made my way there, I kept thinking, Why did he sound like a school principal in disciplinary mode? After I walked into his office, I thought, Why is he crying?
“They let you go,” he managed to get out.
Marty was sweet that way. He was still new to the manager game. What hurt me hurt him. And yet right now I couldn’t quite compute this data. “What?”
“They decided you weren’t ready, and they’re letting you go.”
I was stunned. Stunned, and frankly pissed. But first stunned. “How is that possible? Why? What do you mean, I wasn’t ready? I need to know why!”
Marty didn’t have much more information than that, so I called Gene Saks directly. No matter that I’d barely had an interaction with the man, I wanted to know what happened. This storied theater director was gracious enough to take my call, and laid it out for me.
“Jon, you just didn’t look like you were ready to do the part,” he told me. “And you’d been there for six weeks already.”
The only reaction I could possibly have was, He was right. I couldn’t argue with him. He tried to lessen the blow by saying that they were bringing in a well-known name—Doug McKeon, who’d been in On Golden Pond—and that I shouldn’t fret too much. What I never knew, and what nobody told me, was that I was expected to see the show as often as possible and be off-book, ready to go, on my own, in two weeks. The understudy rehearsals were really there to practice on my feet what I’d studiously picked up from watching the show night after night, and memorizing like gangbusters in the meantime. Had they told me this on day one, I would have worked my ass off to get ready, but at heart I had to agree with Gene: I wasn’t ready.
I went home devastated, feeling punched out and dazed like an unprepared fighter. Plenty of tears were shed in the presence of my mom, and I have to say, this is when having parents in the business is an enormous advantage. They’ve seen it all, and they completely understand. One of my mother’s closest friends is the wonderful actor/director Austin Pendleton, and he said something to me that greatly helped me feel better: “Jon, I don’t respect anybody who hasn’t been fired at least once.” Phone calls and visits from Mom’s theater friends were a welcome balm to my wounded ego.
Then I got another phone call from Marty. Considering the roller coaster his telecommunications typically engendered, I considered not picking up.
“Jon, we have good news,” he said. “Forget Brighton Beach. Torch Song doesn’t need somebody for the road now. They need somebody to take over for Fisher Stevens here. They’re willing to offer it to you, so you’re getting that rarity, kid: a second chance.”
The sense of relief was overwhelming, the sense of gratitude just as strong. I was going to make this work. I ran down to the Helen Hayes that night to watch Torch Song Trilogy, and went backstage afterward to meet the cast. There was Estelle Getty, not yet a “Golden Girl” but already a stage legend, walking up to me and saying, “Hello-o-o-o, dahling!” as she gave me a big hug and kiss. Warmed by the sentiment, I said, “Estelle, it’s so nice to meet you.”
Her face went absolutely frozen, her eyes confounded. “Oh, oh!” she said. “I’m sorry; I thought you were somebody else.” Okay, I thought, let’s turn this gig into an opportunity to let everyone know I’m not Matthew Broderick. (In the good way, obviously. Not “I’m not as good as Matthew Broderick.” As in . . . Oh, you know what I mean.)
I went in to rehearse the next day, and the vibe was good. I walked around, script in hand, casually working on the lines as they directed me through the blocking of the scenes. I’d write down the character’s actions and movements in the margins next to the lines, all the while eager to get home and commit David to memory.
At home, another call from Marty. “Hey, Marty,” I answered. “Thanks for checking in . . .”
“They’re going to fire you.”
“What?!”
He sounded exasperated. “They said you didn’t know the lines!”
This was starting to get ridiculous. Was this some giant prank? My ire rising, I blurted back, “I didn’t know I was expected to know the lines on the first fucking day!”
“All right, all right,” he said. “I’m going to call them and ask them to give you another chance.”
“Thank you!” I practically shouted. “Please!”
After I spent a few tense minutes alone near the phone, Marty finally called back. “They’re going to give you another day,” he said. “But learn that poem.”
Those of you familiar with the old Little Rascals shorts will recognize Marty’s advice. It refers to the one in which Breezy cuts school because he doesn’t want to recite a poem Miss Crabtree assigns him, and yet an internal voice keeps telling him, Learn the poem. Learn the poem. So I learned it. I crammed like, well, what I was, essentially: a high schooler before a big exam. Only this was something more than just an exam. I wanted people to know I could do this. You may think it a little draconian to expect a novice to memorize an entire part i
n a day, but if this was how the big leagues worked, I wasn’t going to question it. I was going to do anything to give them a reason not to can my ass.
I went in to rehearsal the next day and was basically off-book. I screwed up some lines, but hey, I was in better shape after two days on Torch Song Trilogy than I was after six weeks on Brighton Beach Memoirs. Losing your job does have a beautiful way of sharpening your focus. Things went smoothly after that. I eventually replaced Fisher Stevens in the show, and it wasn’t long before they asked me again if I wanted to go on tour with it. That took me to San Francisco and Los Angeles, where great reviews for the LA premiere of Torch Song led to my getting my first movie roles.
Years later, my mother and I were reminiscing about my first taste of professional acting, and she said something that really struck me. She said that while she knew from watching me at Stagedoor Manor that I had a talent for performing and making people laugh, and that from seeing me onstage in Torch Song Trilogy she knew I was going to make it, what really gave her the idea that I was cut out for acting as a career was how I dealt with the firing.
“Jon,” she reminded me, “when they handed you your pink slip, what was wonderful about your reaction was that it was complete anger and outrage. You came home and said, ‘I could have done it, Mom! They didn’t give me the chance!’ Rather than, ‘Oh, poor me, I’m defeated. I’m never going to do this again.’ You were a warrior, and I was so very proud of you.”
Now that you’ve gotten the admittedly incongruous image of me as a warrior out of your head—was I in armor, perhaps? samurai-like? some shirtless, bloodied hulk in an MMA ring?—know that inside me I did discover a resilience and an urge to prove my worth that’s stood me in good stead ever since. My life in show business would go on to be quite the amusement-park ride in terms of highs, lows, curves, and occasional screaming, but to have your first up/down stomach churner right off the bat was immensely valuable.
