WASHINGTON — The showbiz road is paved with verbal dodges, from “yada yada” to “all that jazz,” as stage and screen collide at the corner of “Class” and “Razzle Dazzle.”
There at the intersection is “Seinfeld” alum John O’Hurley, who stars in Bob Fosse’s legendary musical “Chicago” at the National Theatre through Feb. 15.
His role as hotshot lawyer Billy Flynn is a little more Jackie Chiles than J. Peterman, but it suits O’Hurley perfectly.
“I saw the play back in the late ’70s, back in its original conception,” O’Hurley tells WTOP. “It kind of lived in the shadow of ‘A Chorus Line’ in terms of the Tonys, so it never really got the recognition. It was a musical ahead of its time.”
When history finally caught up with Fosse’s genius for the 1995 Broadway revival, the show won seven Tonys, including Outstanding Musical Revival (no, Kramer wasn’t swept up on stage to receive the award). “Chicago” has run every day since, as the longest-running American musical to date.
The successful revival no doubt inspired the 2002 movie, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, starring Richard Gere in the lawyer role that now belongs to O’Hurley.
“Everyone said, ‘That’s the role you should be doing, … it was kind of made for you’ … But the original concoction of the role didn’t really appeal to me,” O’Hurley says. “I went to see the revival on Broadway and I said, ‘That’s the role I want to do.'”
So in 2005, O’Hurley sat down for drinks with “Chicago” producer Barry Weissman to discuss the stage role. Two months later, he was opening as Billy Flynn on Broadway.
“He’s elegant; he’s dangerous; he’s eloquent, and just one of the great leading-men roles that’s ever been written on Broadway,” O’Hurley says.
A decade later, O’Hurley is still going strong on the “Chicago” national tour, stopping this week in D.C.
The show is really something to see, as O’Hurley offers his own unique additions.
“I have certain things that I throw in,” O’Hurley tells WTOP with a devilish smile.
At one point, he interacts with the orchestra, stealing the conductor’s wand. At another, he controls lead character Roxie Hart (Bianca Marroquín) on his lap like a ventriloquist dummy.
“It’s a brilliantly scribed number. I think one of the most innovative numbers ever done in Broadway history,” he says. “Not only the melody, the great arrangement of that song, and on top of that Fosse doing the choreography on that number is just out of this world.”
While the scene shows O’Hurley’s comedic talent, it’s really a shining moment for Marroquín, who goes from Marroquín to mannequin with a wooden face and jerky puppet movements.
“Bianca Marroquín is a huge star in Mexico and is going to be an even huger star (here in America),” O’Hurley says. “To say that she’s a triple threat kind of cheats her by probably a couple talents. She is so completely Roxie Hart. I think she’s the best that’s ever done the role. … Add in Terra MacLeod as Velma (Kelly), and the show is unstoppable.”
Together, O’Hurley, Marroquín and MacLeod are rocking the National Theatre.
“The National Theatre is truly, just acoustically, one of the best in the country,” O’Hurley says. “It’s an alive house. The audience is literally four feet from you when you’re on that stage and it still has 1,800 people, so it’s a large house but it’s intimate. So that sets up that feeling of doing a play in the basement for your parents. It has that kind of intimacy to it.”
He also says the nation’s capital provides the perfect audience.
“I love bringing it to Washington, because Washington has such smart people,” he says. “This show is so full of comedic nuance that it takes smart audiences to get it. … This audience really gets it.”
The final courtroom scene had the sold-out crowd howling Tuesday night, thanks to the wild antics of a juror, who caused O’Hurley to break character in laughter.
“I pierced the veil a little last night,” O’Hurley says. “There are moments when you’ve spent that much time with the audience and they’re engaged in the humor of the moment too, it’s OK to break it.”
Such a temptation happened often during his “Seinfeld” days.
“There are moments when I’m in the middle of those endless Peterman monologues … if you watch the corner of my mouth, it wants to go up, ” he says. “There are two or three episodes that I can still see my little corner of my mouth twitching.”
He says those moments include the line: “Elaine, take it from me — it’s going to be rough in there.”
Another: “Better bring a poncho.”
And who can forget his Marlon Brando spoof of “Apocalypse Now” (1979) in Burma?
“That was a wonderful parody,” O’Hurley tells WTOP. “My favorite moment in that show is when Elaine finally arrives on the scene because I’m the only poet-warrior she could find in the neighborhood. I turn to the little 15-year-old boy that’s sitting at the entrance to the cave, and I say, ‘Mugala mugala munjaba,’ and he gets up and walks out. She turns to me and says, ‘Mr. Peterman, you speak Burmese?’ And I said, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sakes, no, Elaine. That was jibberish.”
O’Hurley remembers those “Seinfeld” days fondly, raving about the talent of Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine), Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry), Jason Alexander (George) and Michael Richards (Kramer).
“They were the four smartest actors I’ve ever worked with,” O’Hurley tells WTOP. “You can’t be a good comic actor unless you’re a really smart person, because you have to understand what irony is. … They were willing to throw themselves under a bus in order to make something funny.”
O’Hurley says the show would be hard to do today in the cellphone era.
“Everybody has their heads down now. … ‘Seinfeld’ was funny because people looked each other in the eye and talked, and conversations were more important back then,” he says.
Indeed, those great Jerry-George conversations at Monk’s Diner wouldn’t work if their faces were buried in their phones as they sipped coffee at the table. Elaine’s battles with her bosses wouldn’t be nearly as funny over office email. And Kramer’s Moviefone bit? It would be nonexistent.
And so, “Seinfeld” both defines an era — and transcends it. You won’t find a more quoted show here in the WTOP newsroom. So what makes “Seinfeld” so relevant — even to this day?
“It was about language. It was about taking a subject and dicing it down to the most minuscule moments, then finding a few more. Then if you took three of those particular topics and you made them cross at one point in the show, so that all three subplots always crossed, then you had this recipe for brilliance,” he says.
Moving on from such a legendary show isn’t easy, especially one voted the best sitcom ever by the Writers Guild of America. But O’Hurley continues to reinvent himself.
“It’s amazing how opportunity speaks, and I’ve always let it speak. But I also don’t deny the concept of imagination,” O’Hurley says. “It’s the reason I have an eclectic career at best.”
Eclectic is an understatement.
Not only has O’Hurley starred in “Seinfeld” and “Chicago,” he’s also shown fancy footwork on “Dancing with the Stars,” hosted “Family Feud” and “The National Dog Show,” written three best-selling books on dogs and landed several albums on the Billboard charts.
So what’s next for O’Hurley?
He and buddy Bryan Cranston are launching a new TV series.
“Bryan’s producing it and I’m starring in it, and if we get it all up and running, it will be the funniest thing I’ve ever done on television,” O’Hurley tells WTOP.
Turns out, Cranston and O’Hurley have been best friends since 1983, when the two co-starred on the ABC soap opera “Loving.” They then co-starred on “Seinfeld” (1989-1998) as Dr. Whatley and Peterman, respectively. To this day, they own property together. They vacation together. And wouldn’t you know it? Cranston was O’Hurley’s best man at his wedding.
Twice.
“I fired him at that point,” O’Hurley laughs. “I said obviously it was you, not me.”
And all this time we thought Costanza invented the “it’s not you, it’s me” routine.
Looks like it was O’Hurley and Cranston.
