The bullet train to Broadway

The Twentieth Century Limited, one of the fastest trains of the
1930s, could make the journey direct from Chicago to New York in 16
hours.

Unfortunately for passenger Oscar Jaffey, a once fantastic
theater director, this means that he has only 16 hours left to
regain his reign over Broadway in the Reprise! Broadway’s
Best production of “On the Twentieth Century.”

This fast-paced train ride to destiny starring Broadway veteran
Bob Gunton and Carolee Carmello will make its stop at the Freud
Playhouse tonight through Feb. 2, combining song and dance to tell
the story of Jaffey’s rush to regain a lost love and his lost
success.

Once a legendary producer of Broadway shows, Oscar (Gunton) had
Lily Garland (Carmello) at the center of his heart and his
theatrical success. After propelling Lily into Broadway stardom,
Oscar loses her to Hollywood, where she meets a younger man and
lands an Academy Award. Heartbroken and downtrodden, Oscar produces
five flops in a row, leaving him without money and without his
love.

Now Oscar finds himself on the same “Twentieth
Century” train as Lily, leaving him at a crossroads with
fate. Oscar jumps at the chance to get her back into Broadway. The
problem is, he has no play. All he has is 16 hours aboard the train
to create one and to convince her to return to New York with
him.

While telling the story of the failures of a man, this 1978
Off-Broadway musical is, like many musicals, lighthearted, colorful
and over-the-top.

“It pokes fun at the whole genre of black and white film
and the operetta style of musical theater where everything is so
grand and important, and everyone bursts into song at any given
moment,” Carmello said. “It doesn’t try to be too
serious; it’s a very witty, lighthearted look at that type of
show.”

Gunton originally auditioned for this leading role in New York,
but was offered instead the role of Juan Peron in Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s “Evita.” While Gunton said the role of
Peron was a nice consolation prize, he was still set on the role of
Oscar.

“Oscar Jaffey spoke to my heart and soul much more
dramatically than Juan Peron,” Gunton said. “It’s
a person who lives life one second by second; there’s no
nonchalance about anything; his life is one crisis, one victory,
one glorious success and one failure after another.”

Unlike that of his character, Gunton’s train ride to
theatrical success was a long one. In high school he was a folk
singer and also did operettas and plays (although at that time he
never considered acting as a career). He went to the seminary after
high school and studied for two and a half years with the Paulist
fathers in Westwood. Only after being sent to Vietnam during the
war did he decide to pursue acting.

“When I got back from Vietnam, I had the revelation that,
hey, if you’ve been given certain talents, the only way
you’re going to be happy is by exercising them to the
fullest,” Gunton said. “I’m just very happy that
I made that choice, because I would have been a lousy anything
else.”

Like Gunton, Carmello did not originally consider acting to be
something she wanted to do with her life. She got her degree in
business administration and met her destiny as an actor when she
started doing shows as a summer fling while she was getting her
degree.

“I kept getting enough acting jobs to encourage myself to
stay, so I would keep saying, “˜If I don’t get an
off-Broadway show within two years, I’ll quit,'”
Carmello said.

Just as rushed as Oscar’s quest on the “Twentieth
Century” is the cast’s preparation of this show,
opening tonight after only two weeks of rehearsal.

“We’ve had a very truncated rehearsal,” said
Gunton. “In most situations you would have at least four
weeks. There’s something about having a short period of time
that concentrates the mind.”

Luckily, the Broadway actors are used to the locomotive-speed
rush of the theater. Carmello compared the experience to finals
week in college.

“After you’ve done it for a while, you figure out
tricks to learn it quickly,” she said.