Sometime during my life travel as a person who works in the theatre, I came to realize that Charles Nelson Reilly, who died yesterday, was a genius. (And I use the word reservedly, but not in this case.)

As a kid I used to see him on “Match Game” and “Hollywood Squares,” in a regular featured role on “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” and in odd guest appearances on “McMillan and Wife” and, seemingly, every other show on television whether intended for adults or children. Reilly always played someone fussy and wacky, and became the subject of ridicule among my circle of friends in high school and college. I think we all loved him but thought it wasn’t cool to love him, so although we all knew who he was and all could discuss with some knowledge his various acting gigs, none of us embraced him as a performer. I remember thinking that the guy had found one thing he could do and had somehow parlayed it into this career.

When did I, well, grow up about this? I’m not sure. But I do know that by the time about five years ago I saw him in his one-man show “Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly,” I knew for sure that the man was brilliant. His show was somewhat scripted but largely improvised around set pieces, and consisted solely of Charles Nelson Reilly on-stage talking, and occasionally picking up a prop or going to a stage location and doing some more talking. That’s about it. It ran a staggering four hours (I am not exaggerating) and judging from the audience response could have run another four. That night I would have told you that Charles Nelson Reilly was not only the funniest man in the universe, he was the best actor as well. The show was 100% riveting and 1000% entertaining. After this four-hour personal extravaganza, which touched on his heartbreaking youth, his near-brush with death in the infamous Hartford circus tent fire (an event that clearly marked him; he never again sat in an audience, and in his show said that he still had nightmares about being trapped in that crowd burning to death), and his rise to success and celebrity, Reilly was then mobbed in the lobby for what seemed another four hours. People could not get enough. It was an astonishing performance — both the show itself and the show in the lobby — and now I’m sorry that that show has closed for good.

Looking back I can see how my friends and I were confused while young. Charles Nelson Reilly seemed like one of those “famous, but for nothing” game-show stars. No, Reilly was a hugely talented and highly trained Tony-winning actor who found himself on game shows, where an entire generation (mine) discovered him, and where he damaged his career.

In addition to his solo show, I got to meet Reilly several times. He was a Tony winner for “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and agreed to be part of a cast reunion fundraiser at USC about five years ago when the theatre school staged the show. (Somewhere around here I have three copies of signed cast-album CD’s.) We talked a bit afterward and he was kind and generous. I believe we had him as a presenter at the Ovation Awards but I can’t fully recall; what I do recall are endless discussions and great fear that he would talk all night in what was a tightly timed show. We also profiled him for LA Stage magazine, in a piece I didn’t write but did edit, and the photographer told me Reilly was generous with his time and very inventive in the photo shoot — which clearly showed in the pictures. And I saw him at numerous events and personal appearances and whatnot. He had a reputation for being difficult and cranky, but when I saw him he was always kind and generous and bitchy and very very funny.

He was also, as I said, a formally trained master. After 20 years of working with people who have studied television and film acting and who are now auditioning for the theatre and don’t seem to understand that there isn’t a microphone hanging 10 inches above their heads, I’ve grown to appreciate that more and more. In the theatre, craft is supremely important. It is not enough just to show up, and it is certainly not enough to just “be brave,” as David Mamet advises in one of his very bad essays on acting. One moment from Reilly’s solo show that I’ll never forget was his dissection of the contemporary “Hollywood Squares.” There may have been some sour grapes — again, game show appearances hurt his career, and now he was linked with a game show that, in a new version, was terrible — but to him the difference was in the background of the “stars.” Where once they were highly trained and recognizable character actors and comics, people with real accomplishments and real talents, now they were people who had been voted off various “reality” shows. “They say, ‘Hello, stars,'” Reilly complained, “but it should be, ‘Hello, shit.’ These people aren’t stars. They’re shit.'” In print it just looks nasty; on-stage it was funny and sounded true. To Reilly being a celebrity was not being a star, and calling these people stars was a deep insult.

Charles Nelson Reilly was a star, an actual star, someone who had earned every bit of his career. I’ve never seen anyone so completely hold an audience in the palm of his hand by simply talking to them, and for four hours. Dame Edna can do it (and John Leguizamo can’t), but not for four hours.

The man to the left is actor William Fichtner, or, as I refer to him at home, “Bill.”

Bill is a celebrity actor. He’s on Prison Break (which I haven’t seen, and which, I’m given to understand, also features a sinister character called “Tea Bag,” for reasons best left unmentioned). Previously he was on a creepy small-town alien invasion show called, I believe, Invasion, which I also haven’t seen. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Bill on anything except, if memory serves, a two-part X-Files in the 1990’s, but he is much-discussed at my house because of the shows my son watches and because, as you’ll see, of our special relationship.

Where I have seen Bill, and a lot, is at the gym. I see him there a lot because I’m there a lot, and also because I’ve grown convinced that he’s stalking me. When I’m there in the morning (as just this morning), it’s only a matter of minutes before he arrives and starts lifting or using the cross-trainer right next to me. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. I don’t know if he comes looking for me on Sunday, because I don’t go to the gym on Sunday. I do know that when I sometimes go on Saturday afternoon after my playwriting workshop, he’s there. In fact, when I go on other afternoons rather than mornings, he seems to arrive shortly after me and then pretend to casually scan the various dumbbells (hand weights, not people) near me before “selecting” one or two.

In fact, the only place at the gym that I haven’t seen Bill is in the steam room while I’m in there. I guess he’s too modest.

One time Bill broached a conversation with me. He asked if he could turn the ceiling fan near us up or down or off, I can’t remember, and I obliged. His tentativeness in conversation with me was touching and sad. It’s hard for me to condemn Bill for his interest. In some way it’s flattering.

By the way, there is also a man named Jeff whom I take to be gay (I’m not always good at discerning these things) who strikes up a conversation with me every morning. But I don’t think Jeff is interested in me; rather, he seems more interested in discussing his daily work commute from Burbank to West Los Angeles, a troubling subject I sympathize with.

My wife tells me that she saw Bill at a children’s party one weekend a few months ago. His cover story was that evidently one of our children plays with Bill’s child, but I can imagine Bill’s disappointment in two things: 1) not seeing me there (I take our kids when these events are on Sunday, and I can only hope that Bill isn’t reading this), and 2) my wife’s comment, after looking at Bill for several minutes and blinking and wondering aloud where she knew him from before finally venturing, “Do I know you from Burbank PTA?” (No, because I don’t attend PTA meetings., and therefore neither does Bill. You see the pattern.)

I’m not sure what to do about this relationship. I don’t want to encourage Bill, but I don’t want to have to find another gym. I’ve been a member of this one for more than 15 years. I was there first. The management of the gym has been completely ineffectual at even replacing a shower door handle despite my repeated requests, so I’m sure they’re similarly powerless to do anything about larger issues.

Beyond just hoping that Bill starts to book movie roles that require his presence overseas, I’m unsure what to do. I am, however, open to suggestions. Thank you.

The other night I saw what I thought was the most remarkable play I’ve seen in perhaps 10 years. (Since I saw the premiere production of “How I Learned to Drive,” a play I now teach.) It was “Yellow Face,” by David Henry Hwang, now playing at the Mark Taper Forum here in Los Angeles. Even though I had to get up at the inconceivable time of 5 a.m. the next morning for USC commencement, there I was at 11 p.m. on the plaza of the Music Center declaiming the wonders of the play for Dorinne Kondo, the friend/colleague who invited me, and Tim Dang, artistic director of co-producing company East West Players. I’m going to write more about this play when I have more time, but let’s put it this way:  I wondered aloud how long it would be before “Yellow Face” is published, because I’d like to read it and I might put it into the syllabus of one of my classes.

Today I had lunch with another colleague, a playwright whose work I respect. She’s smart and talented. She wanted to know if I’d seen “Fat Pig” at the Geffen. (Answer: Not yet.) I brought up “Yellow Face,” preparing to launch into full shared excitement. Her reaction:  She left at intermission. “I don’t like plays about writers writing about writing,” she said.  That line was especially ironic to me because in 1992 I wrote a play that specifically satirized a form of novels I loathe:  writers writing about writers who write about writers. (The specific novel that first got me on this rant was “The Dean’s December” by Saul Bellow.) To me, “Yellow Face” was about many different wonderful things, interwoven and unified. To her, it was a play about the playwright writing this play (which, granted, it is on the surface). We saw the same play (well, she saw only half) and arrived at completely different conclusions.

I’ve grown used to having disagreements about art. (And even higher forms, like comic books.) But “Yellow Face”  is precisely the sort of play I go to the theatre hoping to come across — surprising, funny, moving, troubling; something that makes me challenge my own notions of what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior. To me it seems so ambitious, and so successful on its own terms, and so important, that it is unequivocally great. But after listening to my friend this afternoon, I suspect that my dread that night — that the critics are going to reject it as either self-serving or badly constructed — is exactly what’s going to happen.

I hope not.

And I’m going to advise everyone I know to see this show.

Two years before becoming “the hero of 9/11,” Rudy Giuliani channels Dr. Phil for a ferret lover on a radio call-in show. Now the exchange has been lovingly animated.

You must click here.

Moving Arts’ 13th annual one-act play festival just got a great writeup in Flavorpill. I’m looking forward to seeing the show next Tuesday night.

Speaking of one-act plays, the festival I just produced for the MPW program at USC also got strong coverage. Here’s a feature on the festival, with a profile of the eventual contest winner, Kristina Sisco, and a photo of the agelessly beautiful Irene Chapman and her co-star, Del Monroe. Irene is a former Broadway actress, while Del is one of those great classic character actors (I grew up watching him on “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.”) It was a real treat getting to watch their work each night.

As I watched “Spider-Man 3” yesterday morning patently bored by endless scenes concerning Mary Jane’s acting-career frustrations or Aunt May’s rheumatic recountings of her idyllic past with dead Uncle Ben, I began to recall that as a boy I was not a regular reader of Spider-Man comics. In fifth grade I did do a trade with a boy named Chris and got a slew of Spider-Man comics from issue 70-something to issue 90-something, but I never spent my own money to buy one even as I paid for dozens of other titles. This web of memory spun on as, on the big screen, Harry Osborn lost his memory again and then regained it again, and an action scene was interupted for a too-long and unclever pas de deux between J. Jonah Jameson and a little girl in a crowd — and then I hit on it.

Spider-Man is a neurotic loser whose gift of incredible power never eclipses his character flaws. And on many levels, those character flaws are ones we mostly associate with gawky high-schoolers. He is somehow trapped in a failed adolescence.

The Fantastic Four are science adventurers, amalgamatic representations of Shackleton and Einstein. They explore the limits of space and time to broaden our understanding and enrich the human race.

Somehow at age eight I must have realized this:

Spider-Man comics were for boys who wanted to be someone else. Fantastic Four comics were for boys who wanted to be somewhere else.

This seven-minute clip seems to be from a documentary I haven’t seen (yet).

Vonnegut’s mordant humor is well-served by his wry reading voice.

I really miss this guy.

Some things just make me smile.

This video is one of them.

Remember this commercial from the 1960’s? I do. Take a minute — and it is one minute — to watch it, then return here.

—

Okay. You’re back.

To some of us, this commercial is about, well, Crackerjack. (Which I used to enjoy at the midget car races with my father in Atlantic City Convention Hall when I was a boy.) To me at some point this also became about comic acting; Jack Gilford’s pantomime here reminds me of the silent era, which makes me think of Buster Keaton — ironic because Keaton’s face was frozen, while Gilford is mugging.

This morning my two youngest children, ages 8 and 4, ran over to watch this commercial on my laptop screen. To them, this entire commercial is about the missing parents of the two children in the commercial.

“Where’s their parents?” asked one.

“Maybe they’re dead,” said the other.

Viewed from this perspective, the commercial does seem oddly deathlike. These kids get one last treat from a friendly, helpful envoy (akin to Charon, ferryman of the dead, who assists one on one’s final journey). Liberated and with prize in hand, the children run down the pier, not an adult in sight — in fact, no one else in sight — and as the camera descends on them enjoying their final moments, we see them ascend into the clouds.

To most viewers of the time, this commercial was about candy-coated popcorn that even the helpful candy man can’t get unstuck from his teeth. (You’ll note Gilford’s elaborate mouth action.) To my kids, it’s a cautionary tale of children abandoned to their own fates on an isolated boardwalk, far from the watchful eyes of parents.

It’s not unusual for me to find myself entwined in discussions about “bad theatre” with fellow practitioners. Sometimes these discussions are in person, sometimes they’re virtual. Here’s a sample email, received this morning:

“Saw [the new show directed by a mutual friend/colleague] and cannot recommend it. It isn’t bad, and there are some laughs, but I also think there are some inconsistencies in the performances, and the script is obscure. … I keep saying this and then letting it go, but I really don’t know why I go to theater in L.A. anymore. In the past 12 months I’ve probably seen 25 to 30 shows, and I think I really liked two. Water and Power at the Taper or Dorothy Chandler or one of those, and Huck and Holden at Black Dahlia. I can’t think of anything else I’ve really been happy I saw, instead of saving my money and staying at home. Not that they’ve been bad, most of them, just that they didn’t give me any more than I’d have gotten staying at home surfing the net, or watching tv or reading. I know I’ve not mentioned the car plays, of which one was yours. I enjoyed that, and thought the concept was terrific, but it didn’t knock my socks off, sorry.”

All tastes are individual. I would disagree with him about The Car Plays (which Moving Arts is bringing back to the Steve Allen Theatre this summer) which was terrific precisely because of the concept and its execution, but because I was involved in that perhaps I’m biased. I can’t disagree with him about the show he describes because I haven’t seen it. I have to agree with him that in most cases my socks stay firmly on — just as they do through most movies and television. It’s hard to get these socks knocked off any more. Whether the play winds up being good or bad, I still get a visceral thrill from going to the theatre; its very nature (of having to drive there, and arrange for tickets in advance and so forth) makes it far more of an event than lying on the couch scanning channels, and given the backwoods environment I grew up in I still count myself lucky to have such opportunities.

With regard to my friend’s batting average, I would say that it sounds about right. I think he’s equating “knock your socks off” with excellence — and isn’t excellence at the furthest end of the continuum? Excellence is by its nature exceptional. If there were more of it, it wouldn’t be excellent.  I wrote about the batting average here, and here’s the relevant clipping:

Every once in a while you see a show that rewards your devotion to the theatre. Some months ago I asked a group of fellow playwrights how often they were glad they’d seen a show. How often had it been worth the effort involved? Responses ranged from 25% (the always upbeat and bright-eyed comedy writer Stephanie) to 10% (me) down to 5% (the would-be curmudgeon in the group who is a closet romantic — and isn’t that what every cynic is: a romantic who got burned?). The theatre is notoriously difficult to pull off. The writing has to be good, as well as the performing, it has to be pulled together and presented well by a director and designers, the theatre had better not be too hot or too cold, the right audience has to have found it because they are very definitely part of the experience, there had better not have been a bad parking or driving or box-office experience, and on and on and on.

So why do so many of us go so often? Just to get angry at ourselves for our blockheaded refusal to give up? No — because when it is superb, nothing surpasses the visceral thrill of performers and material connecting with an audience in a defined space. I love great performers of all stripes and honestly feel blessed to have worked with so many wonderful actors, and I love great provocative writing. Put the two together and you’ve got the theatre — when it works.

I stand by that. I have had some amazing experiences in the theatre. Are they frequent? No. Then they wouldn’t be amazing.