Old New York: Catherine Russell's Devoted to Her Life of 'Crime'

By Mitch Broder

“Perfect Crime” has been running for 25 years, which might seem like a trivial feat if, say, the same person had been starring in it for 25 years.

Which she has.

Tough break. But a play’s a play. It could run forever and not get crabby. A person’s a person, and most persons can’t play another person 10,000 times. So it’s no surprise that the “Perfect Crime” star holds the Guinness record for Most Performances of a Theatre Actor in the Same Role.

Which she broke four years ago.

Catherine Russell created Margaret Thorne Brent in 1987 and has kept her alive since then in every scheduled performance but four. She missed three to go to her brother’s wedding and one to go to her sister’s wedding. She was supposed to miss two but her understudy got sick and Catherine was the understudy for the understudy.

The photos of Catherine are courtesy of John Capo
 Public Relations. At the top, she's with Richard Shoberg.

Tonight she appeared in performance number 10,281 (though, for her, only performance number 10,277). If she were to repeat all of her performances in a row, she would be onstage for about two and a half years, and she would probably do it without a lunch break.

There are eight performances a week, so, naturally, Catherine sees the job as part-time. She also teaches English at Baruch College, teaches acting at NYU, gives acting lessons at the theater, and manages the theater. In her time off, she appears in other plays and in movies. And every Sunday she goes to church.

The schedule may sound unnatural, but Catherine makes it sound the opposite: She wants to act, teach, and manage, so she acts, teaches, and manages. “I like what I do,” she told me. “I say to my students … ‘I’m happy being here with you.’ That’s why I think I don’t get sick. People are prone to getting sick when they’re unhappy.”

I accepted an invitation to see ‘Perfect Crime’ on its anniversary, even though it meant that I couldn’t get my money back if Catherine didn’t show. I had never seen it. Maybe it’s because it has moved eight times and I couldn’t keep up, which, as it turned out, I also couldn’t do when I saw it.

“Perfect Crime,” by Warren Manzi, is a murder mystery, which portrays a murder, or not, at its start, which is when I fell behind. I admit this not because I’m honest but because I’m not alone. The theater has printed a flier with answers to 17 plot questions, which was obviously put together for people besides me. Or not.

But I didn’t care. The plot can be a challenging diversion, but Catherine is the show. She owns the stage. And she looks really good in black. I found myself so fixed on her performance that, by the end of the play, I didn’t even have any questions, let alone any answers.

This was notable because Margaret Brent is not someone I’d need to meet. She is a therapist who could benefit from anger management therapy. She is in your face all the time and does many unpleasant things, and yet you like her. It’s just like being with a real person.

Still, that person is never quite as fascinating as Catherine Russell. After a nice chat I still couldn’t figure out how she’s played that part so long. She said that she never approaches her  performance as if it’s just a job. Yet she can dash from the box office to the stage at show time as if it’s just a job.

But I did believe that, at least in her case, both are true. Catherine Russell is a person who does what has to be done.

When the play needed a home to stay alive, she not only built one but got Snapple to sponsor it, creating the Snapple Theater Center. When the center needed another tenant, she got “The Fantasticks,” creating a single stop for the world’s longest-running musical and New York’s longest-running play.

“I’m lucky,” she said. “I’m blessed. When you’re lucky and blessed, you show up.” And that was what she had to do one day when I cluelessly called close to curtain.

Yet even then she was polite. She took the call to tell me herself.

“I’m gonna go shoot somebody now,” she said sweetly. “I’ll be thinking of you.”

Catch Catherine in “Perfect Crime” at the Snapple Theater Center, 1627 Broadway, at 50th Street, in New York City.

Old New York: "The Fantasticks" Makes Long-Runs Look Short

By Mitch Broder

“The Fantasticks” seemed like a show you could count on seeing once a decade, so imagine my disappointment when it closed in its forty-second year.

Cast photos courtesy of John Capo Public Relations. 

Sure, it outlasted losers like “The Sound of Music,” which opened in the same season yet closed forty-nine years ago. Then again, “The Fantasticks” didn’t have any Nazis. And indeed, it did come back. Though it closed in January of 2002, it reopened in August of 2006, and just like old times, it’s still running.

It has thus played for forty-seven years if you include the current run, and even if you don’t, its world record is foreseeably secure. This month, the longest-running Broadway show ever, “The Phantom of the Opera,” played its 10,000^th performance. On its closing night, “The Fantasticks” played its 17,162^nd performance.

“The Fantasticks” is Off-Broadway, but it’s still the longest-running musical in history. That alone, I decided, made it worth a fourth viewing. My third was on that closing night, when I had the distinction of getting out of F. Murray Abraham’s way so he could get to the stage to make a closing-night speech.

Where the Playhouse was. 

The show’s original run was at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, in the West Village. The new run is at the Snapple Theater Center, or per the awning, the All Natural Snapple Theater Center. The center, though all natural, does not have the old-Greenwich Village charm. Then again, for Times Square, it’s as charming as it gets.

The show’s home, which is at the Center, is the Jerry Orbach Theater. Orbach was in the original cast. The lobby, fittingly, is a Museum of “The Fantasticks” and Jerry Orbach. It has posters from Broadway shows that starred Orbach, like “Chicago,” and from “Fantasticks” productions like one that starred Liza Minnelli in Connecticut.

The interior of the theater eerily resembles that of the Playhouse. I checked to make sure that I wasn’t blocking F. Murray Abraham. It has 199 seats, just over fifty more than before. It has the same tiny plank stage with the same white-sheet curtain. Maybe the exact same.

Everything is simple, for it is a show about simplicity, and the bonehead things everyone always does to complicate it. It’s a little love story, punctuated with tenacious burlesque humor and sprinkled with gentle, wistful songs that might be quaint but aren’t dated.

The set consists of six black poles, a bench, a chair, a box, and a trunk. The props consist of a watering can, shears, wooden sticks, and confetti. The cast consists of eight actors. The orchestra is a harp and a piano. The whole lot would fit in the chandelier at “The Phantom of the Opera.”

The show opened with its tinkling overture, the fluttering rainbow confetti, and the actors introducing themselves to the audience. Luisa, aka The Girl, popped up to me and cheeped “Hello!” I cheeped hello back. Whenever I go to this show, I play a pivotal role.

My moment with The Girl would be the highlight, of course, but the show continued anyway, leading off with its most famous song, “Try to Remember.” The show proceeded as I remembered it, though maybe even more leisurely paced. A couple of those comedy scenes took enough time to do them twice.

But you don’t come to this theater to see falling chandeliers or dancing animals or flying spider-men or even flying nannies. You come to see a little show that opened on May 3, 1960, and hung on long enough to pay its investors a return of 20,000 percent.

Most of the credit goes to the creators, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, for whom this was a follow-up to a college musical called “Hipsy-Boo!” Ever devoted to his masterwork, Jones directed the current production and for a long time played The Old Actor — which he had played in the original cast.

But a musical needs more than its music to be running — even with a break — since the top salary in the major leagues was $80,000. “The Fantasticks” takes you back to simpler times yet remains timeless. Unlike that salary, which, if you’re wondering, was the take-home for Willie Mays.

My fourth visit took me back, though not as far as my first three. But I blame that on the girl next to me who kept texting in her purse. She was a rude reminder of digital antisocial behavior.

She wouldn’t have got away with that at the original show.

Eisenhower wouldn’t have stood for it.

Try to relax at “The Fantasticks,” at the Snapple Theater Center, 210 West 50th Street, at Broadway, in New York City.