New York -- The waitress, who was doing a pretty good job of the New York
pretend-to-ignore- the-celebrities thing, hesitated a moment before
pronouncing the Friday entree special: Monkfish.
The patrons at the table of the Ninth Avenue theater-district French
bistro, who were doing a pretty good job of pretending not to notice
everyone pretending not to notice them, shared glances and chuckles
before ordering.
Tony Shalhoub opted for the warm quail salad instead of the aptly named
fish. On Shalhoub's advice, Patty Heaton, suffering from cold symptoms,
tried the garlicky pistou, a soup from Provence that resembles pesto
from the bordering Italian region of Liguria.
Heaton, who hails from Bay Village, and Shalhoub weren't having a drink
with dinner because they were on a quick break from actually working.
The TV stars ("Monk" for him; "Everybody Loves Raymond" for her) just
spent the day at the nearby off-Broadway Second Stage Theatre rehearsing
their first major New York stage appearances in years (nearly a decade
for him; closer to two for her).
And they would spend the evening performing the final preview before a
Christmas break of "The Scene," which officially opens Thursday after a
month of previews.
"Believe me," Heaton said, "we more than make up for what we don't drink
at cocktail hour after the show."
"The Scene" is something of an Ohio-goes-to-Manhattan project.
Most obviously, there are Heaton's Cleveland-area connections (her
brother, Michael, writes for The Plain Dealer, as did their father,
Chuck, before him).
Theresa Rebeck, who is from Cincinnati, wrote the play.
And Hank Unger and brothers Mike and Matt Rego, who as the Araca Group
produce shows on Broadway, all grew up, like Heaton, in Cleveland's
western suburbs. They got Heaton to do the play and have the rights to
transfer a successful production from its current nonprofit home to a
commercial theater.
"They sent me the script, and I just really connected with it, and
wanted to do it but wondered who I would do it with," said Heaton, who
has lived in Los Angeles since 1990. "So I showed it to my neighbor,
Tony, who also really loved it."
Heaton connected initially with the fact that the play centers on an
out-of-work actor who winds up on the street after an extramarital
affair with a young, dumb but conniving thing (from Ohio, of course).
In the 19 months since "Raymond" signed off the airwaves after nine
years and 208 episodes, Heaton's screen career has been more or less on
hold. ABC, for instance, passed on a new sitcom she developed.
But as she rehearsed the stage role of the out-of-work actor's wife,
Heaton also found herself connecting with the play's depiction of the
fame game in general, how fleeting it is and how fickle.
While she was Debra Barone on TV, many in the industry and outside it
didn't publicly criticize Heaton, who was raised a strict Catholic, for
her beliefs. Most notably, she's anti-abortion. But she's also against
the death penalty and for gay rights and birth control.
But now that she's more or less just a 48-year-old mom (she and actor
husband Dave Hunt have four sons ages 7 to 13), Heaton is not as
insulated by her fame and finds herself a target for those who disagree.
Instead of going into hiding, Heaton jumped into a lion's den and
returned to live theater in the city where she lived for 10 years
post-Ohio State University and pre-Los Angeles.
"Being back on the stage, in front of people, has been like a bungee
jump where you don't know how long the rope is," Heaton said. "It's
taken a lot of faith."
The play focuses on Shalhoub's character, and the actor said a scene he
plays pretty much naked from the waist down has him nervous. (He grew
visibly more so at the suggestion that audience members might snap
surreptitious cell-phone shots of "Monk-butt.")
But he also said Heaton has the most demanding work, doing back-to-back
scenes requiring high-intensity emotion: anger and disbelief when she
discovers her husband in flagrante delicto with the young thing,
followed by a weepy visit to her best friend.
With a couple of weeks of previews completed, how does she find the
experience of being back on stage?
"Exhilarating and unpredictable and thrilling and entertaining and
challenging," Heaton said in one breath.
Heaton's last big New York theater gigs came nearly 20 years ago, in
1987, and both continue to resonate with her.
First, she produced and appeared in off-Broadway's "The Johnstown
Vindicator," a newspaper comedy by former Ohioan Quincy Long, and won
praise for playing a "dumb but ambitious" character who sounds a lot
like the young thing in "The Scene."
And she worked on Broadway in the chorus of a Winans brothers gospel
musical called "Don't Get God Started," the values of which have a lot
in common with Heaton's own.
"God, that was a long time ago," Heaton said. "Coming back to New York
has been like emerging from a 16-year coma."
But Heaton says she's not sure she's ready to commit to a more permanent
return to the East Coast.
(In fact, she and Shalhoub -- both citing family concerns -- agreed to
the project only because it rehearsed in Los Angeles, and both aren't
sure they would agree to continue beyond the off-Broadway closing date
of Sunday, Feb. 4, even if it is a hit.)
Instead, Bay Village -- where she owns a home but only spends a few
weeks a year -- and her hometown's community theater, the Huntington
Playhouse, where she acted as a kid, may loom large in her plans.
"What I'd like to do is get another sitcom under my belt and then move
the family back to Ohio," Heaton said. "They love it there and I love it
there. And maybe I could do some master classes at the Playhouse, bring
in people like Tony for a week or two. That would be nice."
The brief interview was over, the food and drink consumed. Time to get
back to work. The New York critics, who have a taste for Hollywood star
blood, will be seeing the show all too soon for their reviews, which
will be out this Friday.
Shalhoub had already left. The waitress took the credit card with a
broad smile, the New York pretend-to-ignore-the-celebrity thing wearing
off.
On the street, Heaton, wrapped up against the wind, was not recognized.
She accepted a Ricola herbal cough drop, and took a right toward the
theater. And the future.
