What’s in the Boxes? A livestream performance by Alan Arkin and Robert Klein

Little heads in little boxes — I’ve been driven nuts by Zoom visuals, which have reduced discussion, entertainment, art, and just plain silliness into the home game of “The Hollywood Squares.” But when this pandemic finally ends (probably in 2024, just in time for the next pandemic and a surely chaotic Presidential race, in which the Duopoly will play its preordained game once again), I will remember fondly some of the cultural events that were done over the bizarro Zoom platform, a place where two people can’t properly talk at the same time. (But the second person’s “box” will indeed light up like crazy if he/she does want to interject.) 

An example of a one-time only event: a livestream I caught this past weekend starring two of my faves of long-standing, Alan Arkin and Robert Klein. The duo (who are both grads of early Second City companies but have never worked together before this) performed an un-staged (at their respective homes) reading of two one-acts written by Arkin, to benefit The Schoolhouse Theater and Arts Center in Westchester County, New York.

The first play, a somewhat preachy jaunt in which the Amazing Randi (Klein, playing the real-life magician and skeptic) meets a very welcoming Jesus (Arkin), was very obvious in its writing and allowed for no great characterizations. Arkin and Klein were joined for this and the second play by Jon Richards as the narrator (and necessary stage-direction reader).

The impetus for the play was apparently that Arkin is a spiritual person and wasn’t fond of Randi’s debunking not only magicians, but all kinds of spiritual schools of thought. The idea of Randi being seated next to the big JC on an airplane — and then being reduced to tears at the play’s end (when he arrives at his hotel room) did not make for a really resounding statement on either faith or disbelief.

On the other hand, the second one-act, “Virtual Reality,” was a great blend of comedy-team crosstalk and Theater of the Absurd (a NYC Jewish “Godot” with shady workers as the two-man cast — or are they crooks?). Klein did a great Bronx accent as a guy whose job is to unload three crates that are to arrive from an unnamed source. (Are they filled with stolen goods? Will the contents be sold or exchanged for something even stranger?)

Arkin wrote a terrific “Alan Arkin” role for himself — one where (true to form) his “new recruit” character doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to do in helping Klein, and eventually ends up yelling (in Alan’s classic fashion) about him not knowing what the hell is going on. The play begins with Arkin’s character showing up to his new “job” (or is it a caper?) and being told by Klein that the crates haven’t arrived, and they will prepare for their job by pretending the crates are there and making note of the contents. The piece supplied perfect roles for both of them and was a well-crafted absurdist one-act. (That ends, of course, just where the actual action in a traditional play would begin.)

The livestream was followed by a “talk back” segment in which both actors were willing to answer questions about the plays, or basically anything. The always-terrific Arkin seemed pleased with the whole event, but Klein lamented that he kept looking down at the text (because he saw that Arkin was interacting with the camera). Arkin was far more adept in his performance — this is true. But the odd nature of the second play made it okay that Klein wasn’t fully “engaging” on a visual level. (Plus his tough-guy Bronx accent sounded pretty damned authentic.)

I asked two questions in chat that were answered on the “Talk Back” afterward. The first was about Arkin’s influences for the second play — he honestly admitted “Virtual Reality” came out of him playing around with a playwriting app a friend of his couldn’t get to work. (Turns out I missed him performing it with his son Tony off-B’way in 1998; it was produced at the Manhattan Theater Club with what he said was a one-act starring Elaine May and Jeannie Berlin — then one with Arkin, May, and their children! Jeezis...)

Barbara Harris and Alan Arkin.

The second question was about the late, very great Barbara Harris, whom both men worked with. (Arkin in the initial Second City cast; Klein in the B’way play The Apple Tree.) Arkin responded instantly by saying, “She was brilliant and she had emotional problems. She had difficulty with staying in something [theatrical]. She would have problems and have to leave. But she was unquestionably a brilliant performer.”

The Apple Tree
(Harris on right;
Klein in cast)

Klein noted he had a big crush on her and (some of this is in his memoir) he befriended her and brought her to see his old neighborhood in the Bronx and the Bronx Botanical Gardens. He remembered that, at the time, Harris was lamenting that "Warren Beatty won't leave me alone!" (Post-Second City, she had made a big splash with both her theatrical work and her first film, A Thousand Clowns.)

He was there the night when she “went up” onstage in The Apple Tree: “Alan [Alda] was standing there dumbfounded and Barbara starts addressing the audience. ‘Hello, how are you?’ and she’s not making sense. She’s not crying but she’s not ‘in it’….” Her understudy took over for the rest of the first act and the second act, and an emergency call went in to Phyllis Newman, who took over for the third act and filled Harris' three roles afterward. Klein calls it one of the most “extraordinary” things he had ever seen onstage. (Barbara returned to the show two and a half months later; she stayed with it until after Alda had gone and Hal Holbrook took his place.)

All in all, it was wonderful to see Arkin functioning on all cylinders at 87 and Klein doing some comic bits during the talk back. (He’s a kid of 79.) When the pandemic really does end someday, I won’t bemoan the loss of its jerry-rigged entertainment — but I will indeed have some pleasant memories of these one-time-only livestreams. And yes, some screenshots to prove the damned things really took place.

'I feel like I just auditioned for the part of human being and I didn't get the job.': Deceased Artiste Barbara Harris

She quit appearing in films 21 years ago and only acted in a play or two after that, but Barbara Harris left a rich legacy of movie and TV work when she died this week at 83 of lung cancer. Eighteen features (plus a bunch of early sixties TV episodes) — a number that includes several cult classics as well as other, more forgettable pics redeemed only by Harris’s presence.

I’ve already written a rather thorough and heartfelt tribute to her, which can be found here. I was pleased and flattered to see that Maureen O’Donnell, in the Chicago Sun-Times obit for Harris, quoted from and linked to my 2011 piece, in which I referred to Barbara as “the Garbo of adorable urban neurotic Sixties actresses.”

But there are things I left out of that piece, and there have been some new discoveries of clips “hidden in plain sight” on YouTube. Thus, this piece should be considered a second part to my August 2011 tribute, which was written while she was still with us but was already long out of public view. The title of this piece is a line from her bravura scene in Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, which should without question have earned her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Alan Jay Lerner (left), Barbara (right), and a random
theatergoer.

The first rarity that has shown up is the Comedy from the Second City LP, recorded on Jan 19, 1961, and released on Mercury Records as an original cast album from the Broadway run of the first Second City troupe.

Most interesting is the intellectual aspect of the sketches — these days improv groups seem to aim for sitcom-like set-ups and “signature” characters for each performer, whereas the original group wasn't afraid to drop “egghead” references (as here, when Alan Arkin does a folk song based on William Blake). Barbara sings a ditty about the lamentable lives of various celebrities’ wives and also plays an expert on the Soviet Union (named “Miss Ann Thrope”).

Harris also appears on the second album by the troupe, called simply From the Second City (Mercury, 1962). This record has the classic “Museum Piece” about a housewife talking to a beatnik on the make (Alan Arkin). A film exists of the sketch but it is not available online.

Harris started appearing on television in 1961, with her first role being as a prankster beatnik chick in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. One of her associates was played by another Barbara – scream queen Barbara Steele!

Barbara on "Naked City."

More disturbing and raw is a Naked City episode, “Daughter Am I in My Father's House” she starred in with Dan Duryea. In it she plays a young woman who is bothered at a movie theater by some rowdy young men. Her crazy father (noir vet Duryea) wants to get back at the guys and so has his daughter (Harris) dress up in slutty outfits and makeup in order to trap them (and any other sleazy guy wandering the Upper West Side).

The episode has the peculiar flavor of a David Goodis novel and is yet another great example of a Naked City ep where one doesn’t really care about the cops but is fascinated by the civilians affected by the crime.

Mike Nichols presents Barbara with a CUE award.

Another great rarity: Barbara and two of her Second City cohorts — Paul Sand and Andrew Duncan — appeared in sketches in a 1962 Sid Caesar special called As Caesar Sees It.

One assumes Sid’s golden staff of writers had gone their separate ways by then, since the sketches here are pretty meager stuff. It is fun, however, to see him interacting with young Second City folk.

The film that serves as the best introduction to Harris’ special magic as a performer (as well as the beautiful dialogue of Herb Gardner and the wonder that was Jason Robards, Jr., in his lighter mode) is the marvelous A Thousand Clowns (1965).

A few plot elements are dated but, setting those aside, the film only gets better and better with age. Those who are new to A Thousand Clowns are either entirely immune to its incredible charm, or it immediately becomes one of their favorite films.

Much has been written in praise of Arthur Kopit’s dark comedy Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. Barbara was featured in the off-Broadway production and repeated her role in the really dire 1967 film adaptation.

The cast is sublime (Rosalind Russell, Jonathan Winters, Robert Morse), as is the director (Richard Quine), but the film is a chore to get through. Harris is in fact one of the only redeeming aspects of Oh Dad the movie — it’s the only time she played a sex kitten on film.

Another super-rarity: Barbara receiving the Best Actress in a Musical award at the 21st Annual Tony Awards in 1967 for The Apple Tree. Note the insane “crawl” on the video that tries to explain Harris’ seemingly sedated state by mentioning that Warren Beatty had just broken up with her (!).

Publicity still for The Apple Tree.

It’s great to see her getting the award — it would’ve been even better if she had given some kind of speech (she departs the stage quite quickly after conveying her thanks), as this is the only footage of her out of character that is accessible.

I can only take small doses of post-Odd Couple Walter Matthau, but I have seen the second “act” of the Plaza Suite film (1971) many times on TV because of my major affection for Harris.

Here is a bit from the segment — dig Matthau’s wig and Barbara’s sexy leather gloves (an interesting accoutrement for a supposedly boring housewife).

For years I was convinced that The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery (1975) was a TV-movie, but that was apparently not the case (although it did find a home on late-night TV for years).

Barbara's bio from the Playbill for a 1991 Chicago production
of Prelude to a Kiss, directed by Sheldon Patinkin.

The film, which did play in theaters, stars Gabe Dell (of the Bowery Boys and the wonderfully weird and poetic 1971 film Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, which costarred Harris) is an aging detective; Harris is a small-town woman who lets him know about the somewhat odd predilections of the man he’s searching for.

Barbara’s last two film roles are supporting parts in comedies (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Grosse Pointe Blank). More memorable, however, is her prominent role as a manipulative mom in the straight-to-video film Nice Girls Don’t Explode (1987).

The film is a surprisingly good dark comedy that greatly benefits from the presence of Harris and Wallace Shawn. Here is the trailer:

In the years since I wrote my 2011 tribute to Harris, I was told various things about her from people who work in show business that sounded very sad but: a.) I didn’t know if they were true, and b.) I never met her and can thus deeply love her work without the complications of knowing any of her personal secrets.

The last image in Hitchcock's last film: Barbara winking
at the viewer in Family Plot.

One thing is certain: Her best work will live on, and her cult following will hopefully increase. Farewell and thank you, oh, adorable urban neurotic Garbo!

Barbara steals the scene in the finale of one of the
best films ever made about America,
Altman's Nashville.

The urban neurotic Garbo: Barbara Harris

While I always enjoy celebrating the careers of performers and artists who’ve left this mortal coil, I also do want to salute those who are still with us. And this week, on the occasion of a very nice discovery (two very nice discoveries) on YouTube, and apropos of nothing at all (fortunately not a demise), I am happy to salute the work of an actress who has been forgotten by most folks, but who gave us a handful of wonderfully indelible performances.

This fascination began when I first saw one of my favorite films, A Thousand Clowns (1965). It's possible to "fall" for that film in several ways: devotions can be developed to the super-charismatic Jason Robards, the gorgeously epigrammatic writer Herb Gardner, the manic Gene Saks, or the the wonderful BH. Harris was cast in the film instead of Sandy Dennis (whom I also love, but that’s a story for another post), who had played the female lead onstage. Harris's performance in the film causes one to wonder, “who is this adorable woman, who can be cute but not cloying and impish but not off-putting?”

If you climb with me on the relatively small bandwagon of diehard Barbara Harris fans (not to be confused with the bandwagon for the lead singer of the girl group the Toys, or any of the many other Barbara Harrises who’ve worked in show biz in the last half-century), you’ll discover a small number (18) of terrific performances in both landmark movies and ones that only the true aficionado of late-night TV (or, these days, obscure old VHS tapes and the occasional TCM airing) knows about.

At various points in the Sixties and Seventies, Harris was perched on the brink of superstardom, but didn’t have much interest in it (in that regard, she is a “legit” theater, less sex-kittenish version of the wonderfully hesitant Tuesday Weld). The only trace of a recent interview with her on the Net, from 2002, finds her saying she didn’t have an impulse to keep acting, and she has in fact been an acting teacher for the past few decades — before, during, and after the final flourish in the Eighties and Nineties where she played a few moms onscreen.

So who is this “mystery” performer who was marvelously endearing onscreen, but deliberately forsook fame and wealth at just about every turn? The basic facts of her life are available in the usual places online. She was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1935, and found her first great foothold as a performer in a troupe called the Playwrights Theatre; other members of the troupe included Ed Asner, and Nichols and May. She graduated from there to the Compass, which is best known for serving as a springboard for both the aforementioned comedy team (whose three LPs never, ever go outta date) and Shelley Berman (whose wonderfully paranoid visions also never, ever date). The group was run by her first husband, Paul Sills, one of the true legends of American improv comedy.

The first cast of the Second City.

The Compass, in turn, grew into a troupe called “The Second City,” with Barbara being one of the two women in the initial ensemble (Mina Kolb was the other). The troupe brought its sketches to the Broadway stage in 1961 (in From the Second City), and Harris distinguished herself in a number of roles, including a housewife seduced by a beatnik (Alan Arkin) in a sketch called, simply enough, “Museum Piece.” A video exists of this sketch and appears in a CBC documentary about the history of the two Second City troupes (it is time for someone to get the full sketch online!).

The Second City's Broadway run was Barbara's ticket to fame in legit theater. She appeared in the off-Broadway hit Oh Dad, Poor Dad… in 1962, then costarred in Mother Courage on Broadway in ’63, and wound up having the distinction of Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane writing her a musical — On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (pictured) was written explicitly for her. Her big number later became an AM radio staple for singers like Eydie Gorme, “What Did I Have That I Don't Have?”

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Barbara repeated her off-B'way role in Oh Dad, Poor Dad... in the wildly uneven 1967 film adaptation (her sole overtly sexy role, with even a bikini scene thrown in, to wake the audience up) and won a Tony for her next musical, the critically hailed three-part show The Apple Tree ('66-'67) with Alan Alda and Larry Blyden.

At this point, the story gets a little fuzzy — I distinctly remember looking her up in the Lincoln Center Library to find out where she “went” after the big films of the Seventies and discovering an article in a theater magazine that mentioned that she had scuttled her Broadway career by having a night where she went “dry” onstage and abruptly left a show in mid-run (I believe the show was Apple Tree). I’m told by many people that “everything you need to know is available on the Net,” but the name of that particular show is mentioned nowhere online, nor is her supposed “nervous breakdown” confirmed or denied anywhere.

The cast of The Apple Tree.

Whatever troubles she had in the late Sixties were totally wiped away by her successes in the Seventies. She came back with a one-two punch, two roles in two very significant films, both of which feature finales that pivot entirely around her. The first is, of course, Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), and the second is Alfred Hitchock’s Family Plot (1976). Hitch thought enough of Barbara to end the film (and thus, unwittingly, his career) with her winking at the camera. An adorable gesture in a very enjoyable but not perfect film.

Family Plot

It’s almost inconceivable that Harris didn’t go on to instant fame after those two films. Imagine — to have Altman’s critically-lauded tapestry end with a performer absolutely nailing a killer song by Keith Carradine (which pretty much sums up what Altman was trying to say about America and apathy in a few verses), and then for that same performer to be the very last person seen in the very last Hitchcock film, winking at the camera (Hitch himself winked at his audience in the Family Plot poster, meaning Barbara was most definitely his surrogate). And then the lady appears in one very popular film — the first (and much-too-copied) modern-era “body-switch” comedy Freaky Friday (1976). She follows this with a few more umemorable movies, withdraws to teach somewhere along the way, does a few more supporting "mom" roles (and a scene in the, again, wildly uneven, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)), and is never heard from publicly again (unless you took her classes, of course).

Harris is indeed an enigma of sorts — the Garbo of adorable urban neurotic Sixties actresses. We don’t know anything about her private life, which is fine (I was intrigued, though, to see Robert Klein mention in his autobiography that he had a crush on her when they worked together in The Apple Tree). But we also don’t know much about her as a performer, except for the work that was preserved onscreen.

Nashville

The book The Nashville Chronicles by Jan Stuart reveals that, early on, she thought her performance in Altman's epic tapestry was terrible (she initially had another song in the film, one by Chicago friend Shel Silverstein). Altman told her she was wrong, but she begged him to let her buy and destroy the rushes of her initial scenes. He wouldn’t let her, and thus we still have her performance as Altman intended it — but the other song hit the cutting room floor, so that Altman could properly tease out the fact that her character indeed *could* sing….

So Harris is an actress who left us with some superb starring and supporting performances on film, some well-remembered but ephemeral theater and TV work (out of which only a jarringly disturbing and brilliant Naked City episode exists on DVD), and a bunch of unsubstantiated show-biz-style rumors (another one appears on the always-unreliable IMDB, but I will only refer to the ones I’ve actually read in print sources). Of course what it comes down to is that Harris’s personal reputation, whatever that may have been, has been washed away by the sands of time and what we’re left with are the performances, for which I am incredibly grateful.

Since A Thousand Clowns, Nashville, Family Plot, and Freaky Friday are all imminently available, let me just direct you to the nicest rarities that appear online. First, audio tracks of an ill-fated, off-B’way revival of Brecht’s Mahagonny starring Harris and Estelle Parsons. Then the underrated (okay, forgotten) Herb Gardner character masterwork Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971). Harris has a bravura scene that earned her an Oscar nomination. She is utterly sublime.



Jerry Schatzberg’s The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) is remembered primarily for its early starring performance by Meryl Streep, but Harris is equally wonderful. The trailer can be seen here.

The only Harris film I’ve yet to see — and I'm certain it will appear on the Net in some fashion — is Hal Ashby’s 1981 picture Second Hand Hearts (originally called “The Hamster of Happiness” — I’m not kidding!). A fan of the film put up a clip here.

The Apple Tree

I close with the two clips that kicked off this whole musing on the wonderful Ms. Harris, two segments from her work in Broadway musicals, as captured for TV. I was surprised by these clips for two reasons: because I NEVER thought I’d see her work on Broadway on video; and because she worked in a quiet and nuanced fashion in the movies, but is definitely using what they call “heightened realism” in these clips (or, more apt, cartoonlike caricature for broadly cartoonish musicals).

She also played “split” characters in both shows, so she affects a very cute and somewhat silly voice for each introverted personality. Here she is on the Tony Awards performing a scene from The Apple Tree where she plays the Jules Feiffer character “Passionella,” who wants to be a “beautiful, glamorous, radiant, ravishing… movie star!” Check out the ultra-quick costume change:



And please let us not speak of forthcoming revivals with Harry Connick Jr., or overblown Minnelli movies with Streisand (was there a movie musical with Streisand that was not overblown?), Yves Montand, and a young (singing — yes, I’ve got the LP with the outtake) Jack Nicholson. Here are the original stars of On a Clear Day…, John Cullum and Barbara on The Bell Telephone Hour’s 1966 special “The Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner.” On a Clear Day… is very much of its era (the lyrics get into very cutesy places, as when "bestir" is rhymed with "disinter"), and I have no idea how it will be packaged as a revival, and I don’t care, because I won’t see it. This is the real deal:



Wherever you are, Ms. Harris, thanks for the performances. You did turn out to be a very different sort of “radiant, ravishing movie star,” and are not forgotten.

Update: My Deceased Artiste tribute to Barbara Harris can be found here. RIP.