New in New York: This "Chaplin" is Worth Trying on For Size

By Mitch Broder

Charlie Chaplin would surely approve of a musical called "Chaplin the Musical," if only on the grounds that it's a musical called "Chaplin the Musical."

Not just approve of it, but also believe it to be the world's greatest musical, since he would believe it to be a musical about the world's greatest movie star.

Chaplin was the Little Tramp who got the Big Head. But it was forgivable, because he actually was the world's greatest movie star. And happily, by the end of his life he had reduced his head enough to publicly act as if he wasn't, even if he still thought he was.

It took a long time to get a musical based on Chaplin's life to Broadway. It took a long time to get a musical based on Shaw's "Pygmalion" to Broadway. That musical was "My Fair Lady," and it became the longest-running musical. "Chaplin" isn't "My Fair Lady," and it probably won't.

Still, it's not a bad way to spend a couple of hours. It's a pleasant show with pleasant music about a recurrently unpleasant life. It follows Charlie from his bleak boyhood, which, early on, he sums up with the line: "Dad died drunk, Mom went crazy, so maybe I should go into the movies!"

"Pygmalion" was so tough to convert that even Rodgers and Hammerstein gave up. Others have made Chaplin musicals, but none made it to New York. This one must be the best yet, considering that it's here, but it enjoyed no help from Rodgers and Hammerstein, let alone from Lerner and Loewe.

It does enjoy a lovely cast, led by Rob McClure, who has Chaplin nailed both as the Little Tramp and as Chaplin. It also enjoys a lovely design, suffused with black and white, which is, of course, the way most of us have come to picture Chaplin.

And it does enjoy nice songs. But you won't go out humming them. They work well in the show. Then they stay there.

The lack of memorable music is frustrating, since this is, after all, a musical. The lack of Tramp scenes is also frustrating, since this is, after all, "Chaplin." McClure is enchanting when he does the enormously popular character, but he doesn't do much of him. This is not "Little Tramp the Musical."

In the end, that could be the biggest drawback. Chaplin's wasn't a musical-comedy life. Parental alcoholism and mental illness were just the overture. His later years were afflicted with — besides the Big Head — bad marriages, governmental harassment, and exile. Everybody sing!

The show's best number is itself sinister. It's "All Falls Down," sung by Jenn Colella as the sinister gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. Hedda sings gaily of destroying Chaplin because he didn't grant her an interview.

This is insulting to a former newspaperman like me.

Maybe that's the best reason to see the show.

Hats off to "Chaplin," at the Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, in New York City.

New in New York: At Hello Deli, Rupert's Finally Got the Goods

By Mitch Broder

The best way to meet a beloved late-night TV star is to ambush him while he’s selling a cup of meatball-and-spinach soup.

But then, this is intuitive to New York City tourists, who meet such a star every day by bounding into his delicatessen.

The star, of course, is Rupert Jee, who, against Mega Millions odds, became a household name in comedy while running a sandwich shop. He took over the shop, Hello Deli, in 1992. The next year, “Late Show with David Letterman” moved into his building and drafted him.

He has since made dozens of improbable appearances on the show, while, with his deli partner, May Chin, remaining a humble proprietor. And lately, along with the air time, he has been entrusted by his network with the “Late Show with David Letterman” souvenir-stuff stand.

The stuff used to be sold at the nearby CBS Store, but CBS closed the store, which has become a meat-pie shop. The network offered the “Late Show” merchandise to the likeliest neighbor. So now Rupert has T-shirts, caps, and mugs where his soda fridges used to be.

The stuff attracts more business, which means it attracts more fans. People sweep in all day and greet Rupert as if he’s their best friend. They tell him what they’ve seen in New York and then make him pose for pictures. It’s a wonder he has time to make sandwiches, let alone meatball-and-spinach soup.

“It’s almost like a broken record,” he acknowledged. “They ask the same redundant questions. ‘Do you hang with Dave?’ ‘How long have you been on the show?’ ‘What are your favorite moments?’ ‘What’s Dave like?’” He had just finished acknowledging this when a woman from Toronto swept in and said: “Can I take a picture of you, famous man?” She wasn’t talking to me.

Fortunately for everyone, Rupert’s the picture of composure. He is every bit as accommodating as he seems on TV.  He appears to have limitless patience, unless it’s just resignation. When you meet a celebrity, you dream that he’ll treat you the way Rupert does.

He is nice because he’s doing what he really wants to do, which is to run a delicatessen, not to be a TV star. And he’s nice because being a TV star turned out to be fun anyway, and he recognizes that such fun comes with a measure of compromise.

The fun began soon after “Late Show” premiered in August of ’93, when Dave decided to introduce the nation to some of his neighbors. “I was just too scared to be in front of an audience, so I told the writers not to come in,” Rupert recalled. “Of course, they went against my wishes.

“Six weeks into the show, they brought the cameras in without any warning. Dave interviewed me here first, and then he said: ‘I want to do something special for you, something you’ll remember for the rest of your life.’ So he brought me onstage for a standing ovation. An undeserved standing ovation.”

Or maybe not. Rupert’s good nature made him the perfect character to execute some of the show’s more perilous comedy concepts. In one famous piece, Dave sent him out as a dimwitted waiter and fed him lines designed to drive diners to profanity — which they did.

Though he’s on the show a little less often, his fame is undiminished. “But I’ve always carried a simple philosophy in life,” he told me. “If something happens to you, you don’t take it for granted. If people come in every day for pictures and autographs, you just remind yourself that it could have been a lot worse.”

In fact, sometimes he’s on the show even when he’s not on it, which turns out to be every bit as good for business.

“Dave said on the show that if you come in to Hello Deli to purchase ‘Late Show’ merchandise, it’ll smell like salami,” Rupert explained. “Whatever he says sells. That’s the power of television. He called this place a dump one day and, needless to say, the next day the place went crazy. They came to see the dump.”

Get a snack from a star at Hello Deli, 213 West 53rd Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, in New York City.