As far as I know, there’s no official count on how many people swell the New York City theater population. How could there be? As Stephen Sondheim says about the city of strangers, every day some come to stay and ev’ryday some go away. That surely applies to so-called theatricals, many reportedly going away during the two-year-plus pandemic stranglehold.
Among those who stay, there’s one who easily could be called the most versatile and the most committed to working—and playing—in the theater: David Greenspan. As a writer, performer, and more, he’s got a list of credits that may extend the height of the Empire State Building. His omnipresence off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway may actually be some kind or record.
So, here’s Greenspan in his latest enthusiastic venture, reprising—for The Transport Group—his one-man stint as the six-member cast of the Barry Connors’ 1925 Great White Way click, The Patsy. Is he every bit as good in this adaptation as he was at the Duke in 2011? Is he even better? What’s certainly true is that his joy at being onstage is unabated.
Running through the Abrons Arts Center auditorium to clamber onstage and into Dane Laffrey’s high, three-walled set of a twenties living room, he’s full of vim and vigor. Neither vim nor vigor dissipate from start to finish as first he explains the place is the home of the Mr. Harrington (Greenspan, gruff), Mrs. Harrington (Greenspan, argumentative), daughters Grace Harrington (Greenspan, haughty), Patricia Harrington (Greenspan, modest). Then he plays the play, which also involves Patricia/Grace suitors Tony Anderson (Greenspan, earnest) and Billy Caldwell (Greenspan, easy-going).
Considered a drawing-room comedy during its 245-performance run, The Patsy was undoubtedly a trifle then and would be now, were it even discussed for a full-cast return. (It’s never had another Broadway outing. The 1942 musical adaptation, Life of the Party, was the initial collaboration of Lerner and Loewe but closed during its tryout.)
Through its three adapted acts—Greenspan does them in 80 minutes—the Harrington parents huff and puff as self-impressed Grace dallies between Billy and eyes Tony, while Patricia sets her longing on Tony but without much hope. And there’s probably no surprise in Connors’ heart-warmer coming out aces at the end. (Marion Davies and Marie Dressler starred in the eventual flicker, produced by Davies and hubby William Randolph Hearst.)
Transport artistic director Jack Cumming III guides Greenspan in this happy-go-lucky enterprise. Perhaps needless to say, Greenspan almost never lets up on the acting steam, switching characters on enough dimes to buy the Harrington home and then some.
There is one marvelous sequence when Tony realizes he’s falling for Patricia, and she hopes against hope that he’s doing just that. The two stare silently at each other before deciding that they couldn’t possibly be feeling what they’re feeling. Cummings has Greenspan take his time. The lithe Greenspan shifts his place as the two potential lovers but maintains the intense Patricia-Tony shared gaze. Something like this extended instant is often termed stage magic.
Greenspan fans—he has a difficult-to-resist Pied Piper quality—know The Patsy isn’t Greenspan’s solo flight of this nature. Five years ago, under Cummings’ direction, he took on the evidently not impossible task of bringing Eugene O’Neill’s challenging Strange Interlude to agitated life. That’s the two-parter with its succession of extended monologs, one for each character.
In his fervor Greenspan even went some way to improve O’Neill. In a standard production, actors most often freeze while the monologist of the moment gets busy monologuing. With just Greenspan holding forth, audiences were relieved of the inclination to get antsy for the other thesps having to hold and hold and hold their poses.
Now that Greenspan has demonstrated his agility with a stunt that he makes more than a stunt with his jubilant commitment, is he readying others? Apparently, he’s readying a go at Gertrude Stein’s 1927 Four Saints in Three Acts to make up a Greenspan trilogy. If not, here are two he might ponder. As so far he’s focused on the Jazz Age—The Patsy (1925) and Strange Interlude (1928)—why not try The Guardsman, with which Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne made hay in 1924? Or if he likes the idea of taking on the legendary Lunt and Fontanne, he might venture into the 1930s and take up Noel Coward’s Design for Living, in which they appeared with good friend Coward.
Oh well, like Patricia Harrington, a person can hope.
The Patsy opened April 10, 2022, at the Abrons Arts Center and runs through April 30. Tickets and information: transportgroup.org
