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Beauty in the details
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
YOUNGSTOWN
Austin Pendleton is teaming up with Susan Davenny Wyner again to stage “Lucia de Lammermoor” for Opera Western Reserve.
The renowned film and stage actor and director lives in New York but hails from Warren, and has been in town for a couple of weeks rehearsing the Donizetti opera, which will be performed Friday at Stambaugh Auditorium. He is the stage director, while Wyner is the music director.
If only the audience could see the level of precision the two are putting into rehearsing the show.
One day last week in Stambaugh’s rehearsal room, Pendleton and Wyner pored over the details of one scene with Randa Rouweyha, who has the title role, and Michael Young.
They worked with the actors to bring out each nuance, line by line, on how to move, how to sing and how to portray the emotion to an audience.
Because “Lucia” will be performed just once, there will be no opportunity to adjust it at a later date.
Acting in an opera is especially important when the singing is in another language. “Lucia” will be sung in Italian, with English supertitles projected above the stage.
Pendleton said he likes to ask himself, “If I am an audience member, can I follow what’s happening by the blocking and the way they are singing?”
A tragedy that premiered in the early 1800s, “Lucia di Lammermoor” tells the “Romeo and Juliet”-like story of young lovers who are from families who are enemies. Lucia is forbidden from marrying her beloved Edgardo, and let’s just say it ends in grief and death.
The OWR production marks the first time Pendleton is directing “Lucia.”
“I had only seen it once in my life, but I remember that I liked it a lot,” he said. “It has that character inevitability. They are on a track that they can’t get off of.”
Pendleton, 77, last worked in Ohio in 2016, when he directed the play “Luna Gale” at the Cleveland Playhouse, where his brother is a board member.
His history with Wyner goes back further. He worked with her in 2012 on the opera “Don Pasquale” in Boston, where she lives.
The Warren Philharmonic Orchestra, which Wyner directs, also did a special concert based on Pendleton and all the shows he has been in, about a decade ago. The WPO and Wyner did another show with Pendleton that showcased Stephen Sondheim tunes a few years before that.
Wyner, who is a nationally acclaimed conductor and was a soprano in her early career, has enjoyed working with Pendleton to bring “Lucia” reach its potential.
“This opera is so much more than bel canto singing,” she said. “There’s an urgency and depth in the musical writing that pulls us deep into the emotions, feelings, unrelenting forces pressuring the characters.”
She said the joy of rehearsing and working together is discovering what each singer brings to the music and the drama “I have loved going through that adventure with Austin, who brings so many insights from movies and the stage to bear,” she said. “Austin is keenly attuned to what’s there in the music, the story, the actors, exploring to get both the dramatic arc and the details that compel.
“I often say I wish I could bring our audiences into the immediacy and intimacy of the rehearsals – they are so filled with vulnerability and revelations and love among all of us involved.”
Pendleton’s noteworthy career is well-documented, and his credits are too numerous to mention. His film work ranges from voicing Gurgle in “Finding Nemo” (2013), to character roles in “A Beautiful Mind” (2001) and “My Cousin Vinny” (1992), to the role of Frederick Larrabee in the landmark 1972 comedy “What’s Up, Doc?” with Barbra Streisand.
He also had a recurring role in the TV drama “Homicide: Life on the Street” (1998-99).
In 2016, Pendleton was paid a great honor as the subject of the short documentary film “Starring Austin Pendleton.” In the film, directed by Gene Gallerano an David H. Holmes, actors and film insiders talk admirably about Pendleton’s prolificness, his work and his approach to life and acting.
Pendleton is also a playwright and an acting teacher in New York, and has been a mentor to many.
A short chat with him reveals the depth of his career; he readily shared behind-the-scenes stories that illuminate his experience.
He was the first person cast in the original stage production of “Fiddler on the Roof” (1964), in which he played the role of Motel the Tailor.
Before hitting Broadway, the musical received scathing reviews in Detroit and almost closed due to lack of funding, he recalled. But thanks to director Jerome Robbins, “Fiddler” was not only fixed but went on to become one of Broadway’s most enduring works.
“He pulled that show out of the fire, just by hard work,” said Pendleton of Robbins. “Just by saying ‘what’s wrong with this moment’ ... He kept at it, and he prevailed. He said he was going to work on 10 things a day, and looked at every single moment in the show.”
It’s an approach that Pendleton is taking with “Lucia di Lammermoor,” adding that a director never knows how a show will be received. “It’s in the hands of the gods,” he said.
For “Lucia,” he is trying to anticipate the reaction to each scene during the rehearsals.
Pendleton’s experience and attention to detail will be boosted by a strong cast that features the return of Rouweyha. The singer has appeared in OWR’s productions of “Elixir of Love” (2015) and “The Barber of Seville” (2012), in which she sang opposite Lawrence Brownlee, the great Youngstown-born tenor.
The cast also includes Matthew Vickers as Edgardo, Lucia’s love; Timothy Culver as Arturo; Michael Young as Enrico; Rachael Pavloski, Jonathan Stuckey and XuYue Qing.
David Vosburgh is the scenic designer, Barbara Luce is costume designer, and Jon Simsic is chorus master.
Dancers from Ballet Western Reserve also appear in the production.