Lunch Special: Stars and Sandwich
By JOANNE KAUFMAN
Lorna Savage was a bit confused the first afternoon she showed up at a performance produced by Food for Thought, the only drama series in the country devoted to one-act plays. "I saw all these women sitting around with sandwiches on their laps," she said. "I thought it had to be the wrong place."
Soon enough, Ms. Savage became insatiable. Not for the sandwiches included in the ticket price (though they were perfectly fine), but for the lightly staged readings of plays (by Tennessee Williams, Noël Coward, Edward Albee and David Mamet, among others) and for the top-drawer talent. "I saw the Redgraves, Patricia Neal and Tommy Tune. I've seen Liza Minnelli, Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach—and they don't really perform much anymore, you know. I once saw Lauren Bacall in the audience. She's not real friendly," Ms. Savage confided.
Food for Thought, which just began its 10th year, was conceived by Susan Charlotte, a former soap-opera writer. "The one-act form is something that I like a lot and that I felt was neglected," said Ms. Charlotte, who, in early 2000 tried futilely to mount a production of her own award-winning one-act "Love Divided By" with her friend the actor Chris Noth. "Mainstream producers didn't want to do one-acts because they weren't commercially viable. That's what kicked off this whole thing," continued Ms. Charlotte, 55, whose first move was to approach four colleagues and solicit scripts.
The Oscar, Tony and Emmy-winning writer Peter
Stone immediately offered up a play, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Tony Kushner let Ms. Charlotte premiere his "East Coast Ode to Howard
Jarvis." Cliff Robertson, Judith Light, Rita Moreno, Kate Burton and Betty
Buckley were some of the actors who signed on as revolving cast members for the
first season's thrice-weekly performances at the Producer's Theater near
In December 2000, when she originally planned to fold her tent and go back to playwriting full time, Ms. Charlotte mentioned Food for Thought to Arthur Miller, and he offered a couple of his own one-acts: "I Can Remember Anything" and "Clara."
"So we decided to extend the season," said Ms. Charlotte, who enlisted Elaine Stritch, George Grizzard, Bob Dishy and Jared Harris, now a performer on "Mad Men," to appear in Mr. Miller's plays. After a brief write-up in the New York Times, there were 1,500 messages from ticket-seekers on Ms. Charlotte's answering machine. "It was two Arthur Miller one-acts that no one knew about, it was four stars and it was lunch. People responded to it," she said. "Little by little there was word of mouth and we started building an audience."
Food for Thought, which is currently berthed at the Players Club in Gramercy Park, does one or two shows a week (ticket prices range from $47.50-$65), generally to a capacity crowd of 200. They're mostly women, mostly on the far side of middle age and always enthusiastic. Depending on the "theme" of a given season—for instance, offstage characters, juxtapositions or the search for identity—audiences have seen adaptations of short stories by Elmore Leonard, premieres of plays by Joyce Carol Oates (Ms. Oates once showed up with Steve Martin in tow), and such obscurities as Tennessee Williams's own one-act versions of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "The Glass Menagerie."
"The one-act production has a happy ending. At the end, Laura goes on a date with the gentleman caller," said Ms. Charlotte, who's also put together a one-act comprising the six alternate conclusions of "Streetcar." "They're all happy, too. It's fascinating to see them when you know what the play ultimately became."
The actors will often linger after a performance for a Q&A session. "You want to be a part of this," said Marian Seldes, who recently did a turn as Lady Bracknell in selections from "The Importance of Being Earnest." "Susan designs each program very carefully."
"I got to do the one-act version Arthur Miller wrote of 'A View From the Bridge,'" Danny Aiello said, "and I really killed with it. The only unfortunate thing was that Arthur wasn't here to see it." The pay, Mr. Aiello granted, is puny, but he and others happily balance the high two-figure honorarium against the chance to do good material with minimum effort (participants have a one-hour rehearsal on performance day), to play roles they probably wouldn't have a crack at otherwise (Jane Powell has done Pinter), and to work with old pals.
"We did a one-act by Pinter, 'Victoria Station,' with Tony Roberts and Judd Hirsch," Ms. Charlotte said. "They hadn't acted together since 'Barefoot in the Park,'" the Neil Simon play that ran on Broadway from 1963 to 1967. "Kathleen Turner first called me because she was doing 'The Graduate' on Broadway and she thought Food for Thought would be a good place to warm up. She told Treat Williams about it, then he called and started doing work for us," added Ms. Charlotte, who last week was surprised and delighted to see the original graduate himself, Dustin Hoffman, sitting in the audience. Every year, there are some 75 performances of 40 plays; several one-acts are repeated with different casts. Thus, true devotees have had a chance to see Beckett's "Happy Days" with Ms. Turner, Charlotte Rae and Frances Sternhagen as Winnie.
Food for Thought also serves as a laboratory for new work; Lynn Redgrave wrote "Nightingale," a one-woman play about her grandmother that had its premiere under Ms. Charlotte's aegis. It begins previews at Manhattan Theatre Club on Thursday.
The series has had a peripatetic existence, and
come January it will pick up stakes again and head for the
What hasn't changed, said Ms. Charlotte, is her mandate. "We're about doing what I consider really great theater. I'm not coming from a base of being commercially viable. . . . That it's continued this long and seems to keep getting bigger is kind of a shock to me."
Ms. Savage, who attends two performances a month, was at the Players Club in late September for the season opener, "The Love Course" by A.R. Gurney, starring Zoe Caldwell. "I don't have the time to go to Broadway matinees, so this is perfect," she said after the show. "I enjoy seeing fine actors sit on a chair and read with each other and then talk to the audience. It's not an opportunity you get in a regular theater."
—Ms. Kaufman writes about culture and the arts for the Journal.
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