It’s always interesting to reach back to see what a critic had to say about certain artists when they first debuted — especially when the critic got it wrong.
H.L. Mencken dismissed James McManus as a television reporter after WMAR’s historic, first-in-Baltimore telecast — from the afternoon races at Pimlico — in October 1947. “The young man doing the talking was poor at the job,” Mencken said of McManus, who went on to become Jim McKay, a giant of television sports in the 20th Century.
After the Beatles performed in Baltimore in September 1964, a critic for the bygone Baltimore News-American said the British group’s huge popularity would soon wane. “The Beatlemania phenomenon is slowly coming to a halt,” he wrote. “Despite their many current discs, the Beatles will soon lose their popularity for many fans around the world.”
I would quote the Pennsylvania newspaper pundit who panned Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, but we need to get to the matter at hand — that is, what longtime theater critic J. Wynn “Judy” Rousuck had to say about the very first play staged by the fledgling Everyman Theatre, now in its 35th season.
It so happens that Kyle Prue, the actor who had the male lead in Everyman’s inaugural production, “The Runner Stumbles,” in October 1990, has been with the company ever since — in roles on stage and behind the scenes — and will appear as Marc in Everyman’s next production, “Art,” an award-winning comedy by Yasmina Reza, running through Nov 16.
“We have our first preview for ‘Art’ on Sunday night this week, the 19th,” says Prue, “and that will be 35 years to the day that ‘The Runner Stumbles’ opened.”
It figures that he would remember the date. It was the night he and his college chum, Vincent Lancisi, embarked on an effort to realize Lancisi’s dream of establishing a professional theater and resident company of actors in Baltimore.
Prue, already committed to a career in acting and having some success in stage roles, had gone to Los Angeles looking for television and film work. When that didn’t happen and Lancisi summoned him to Baltimore, Prue packed up his pickup truck and drove back here.
They rented lights and staged “The Runner Stumbles” in a Charles Village church. The play opened during a cold spell and Lancisi rented a portable heater to blow warm air into the large space.
The audience was small but appreciative, says Prue, who played a parish priest, Father Rivard, suspected of murdering a nun.
What did the Baltimore Sun’s theater critic think?
In her review, Rousuck was laudatory: “Judging from the high caliber of most of the acting and Vincent Lancisi’s restrained, thoughtful direction, this new company is off to a promising start.”
Rousuck praised Carol Monda’s Sister Rita. But the critic’s take on Kyle Prue was more about his appearance than his skill: “From his goatee to his ramrod bearing, he seems more Mephistophelean than priestly.”
It’s hard to tell if that was criticism since the priest was accused of murder.
Prue remembers that he was a young actor, in his mid-20s, trying to portray an older priest. It’s a role, he says, he would like to revive and play in mid-life.
A sidebar to Rousuck’s review in The Sun says a ticket to “The Runner Stumbles” cost just $10.
After that inaugural production, Prue and Lancisi remained committed to the Everyman start-up. “We were determined,” Prue says.
But getting established was a struggle. The theater company had no permanent home and only produced one play per year for its first five seasons. A turning point, says Prue, came when the troupe moved into a former bowling alley in the 1700 block of North Charles Street and presented a full season of plays. Everyman stayed in that space for 18 years before making the big move into its present location, the renovated Town Theater, on East Fayette Street, in 2013.
Through the years, Prue took acting roles, but got into the management of Everyman as well. His work as producing director took him away from performing.
Marc in “Art” is his first return to the stage since appearing in Everyman’s production of “Harvey” two years ago.
Getting back on stage is like riding a bicycle, Prue says. But then, not really.
“It’s a little scary,” he says. “Some of acting you don’t forget, but, you know, you have to exercise those muscles.”
So, like a boxer training for a comeback, Prue started working on his role in “Art” three months ago. “I never used to do that,” he adds. “Back in the day, I would start working on a play on the first day of rehearsal.”
The script for “Art” calls for three actors, longtime friends who experience a comic crisis when one of them buys “an exorbitantly expensive, white monochromatic painting presented as modern art.” Prue is teamed with Tony K. Nam and Bruce Randolph Nelson of Everyman’s resident company, under the direction of Noah Himmelstein.
The script, Prue says with a laugh, has “a lot of words, a lot of words!”
And he committed to learning all of them. “That’s so I’m not worrying about words,” he says. “If you’re worried about words, you’re not acting.”
Lancisi, the theater’s founding artistic director, announced that he will retire at the end of the current season, in spring. He and Prue can look back on establishing a new theater for Baltimore 35 years ago and making it a permanent and important fixture in the city.
Judy Rousuck’s 1990 review of the first play noted how an anonymous donor gave Lancisi $10,000 to get started. “Judging from the stark set,” she wrote, “the money went primarily into artists’ salaries, not stagecraft. It was money well spent.”
Dan Rodricks’ column appears weekly in Fishbowl. He can be reached at djrodricks@gmail.com or via danrodricks.com
We became subscribers at Everyman after seeing a performance of August Wilson’s Fences. Over twenty years later, we still look forward to each new production. Everyman Theatre is a gem.
Always interesting. Thank you.