Elaine May's genius lies in her deliciously subversive comic wit
Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic
Published 4:00 am, Saturday, May 8, 2004
At the crest of their popularity in 1962, Elaine May and Mike Nichols broke up their influential comedy duo.
| Her film debut came in 1967, when she played the stage ingenue of a fleabag theater company in Carl Reiner's "Enter Laughing." In her mid-30s at the time, Elaine May was hardly a blushing new talent. But there was something buoyantly fresh about her, then as always, a dewy warmth in her breathy voice, huge almond eyes and the tendency of her hands to flutter about her neck and throat."Daddy, if you don't mind," she told her actor/manager father (played by the florid Jose Ferrer), "I would like to pick my own leading man this time." Her choice was simple: "I want the cute one."Like some Southern belle oddly transplanted to Manhattan, May used her hesitant line readings and dreamy demeanor to create a kind of gentle haze, at once calculated and lullingly innocent. When it came time to snare that cute new leading man, an inept novice played by Reni Santoni, the actress unfurled a glistening comic technique honed onstage and in comedy clubs and improv groups. A red boa slithered and wriggled around her shoulders like a capering snake. Zeroing in for a heavy rehearsal kiss, May scissored her legs to get going and smothered the poor sap before he knew what was coming."Please, darling," she told him in that husky half-whisper of hers, "this is the theater."Born into an itinerant Yiddish theater family, and a child performer herself onstage and on radio, May could have delivered that line in her sleep. Destined for a show business life, she's lived a long, rich and widely undervalued one. From her famous comic partnership with Mike Nichols to her direction of the mega-bomb "Ishtar," May has made waves wherever she landed.On Monday, the publicity-aversive May makes a rare live appearance in a City Arts and Lectures special event at Herbst Theater. At 72, she's earned the lifetime achievement status her fans have long accorded her. But even the most devoted followers of her career are likely to be surprised by something she says or does. Her latest theatrical foray, the 2002 off-Broadway play "Adult Entertainment," was a jolly, sentimental comedy about pornography. May has made a lifelong habit of defying expectations.At the crest of their popularity in 1962, the influential Nichols and May comedy duo broke up. Nichols went on to a sustained megawatt career as a stage and film director and producer, while May has traveled a more winding road of often sly achievements and temperamental dustups.In "Adaptation," a 1969 off-Broadway comedy paired with Terrence McNally's "Next," May compressed American life into the conventions of a game show and loaded the device with softly zinging barbs. "The word Negro," one character says, should only be used in "a sentence that has to do with social justice." In a protest, "signs must be neatly lettered and all requests for peace must begin with please and end with thank you."May wrote, directed and played a timorous botanist, opposite the conniving Walter Matthau, in "A New Leaf" (1971), then feuded bitterly with Paramount over the cuts. She quarreled with the studio again over the unfinished "Mikey and Nicky" (1976). Not that she couldn't be commercial. May wrote the brassy script for "The Birdcage," the 1996Robin Williams/Nathan Lane remake of "La Cage aux Folles," directed by Nichols. According to Hollywood legend, she did crucial and uncredited script work on the 1982 hit "Tootsie." Other screenwriting credits include "Heaven Can Wait" (with Warren Beatty, 1978) and the "Primary Colors" adaptation (1998).Her 1972 film of Neil Simon's "The Heartbreak Kid" is a minor comic masterpiece, directed with a subtle auteurist assurance. With the sun winking dangerously behind him, Charles Grodin betrays his wolfish look early on as an unhappy newlywed who falls in love withCybill Shepherd on his Miami Beach honeymoon. The director's daughter, Jeannie Berlin, plays the hapless wife.
ELAINE MAY AT THE CITY ARTS & LECTURES MONDAY MAY 10, 2004 AT HERBST AUDITORIUM, SF, 8PM
| Her film debut came in 1967, when she played the stage ingenue of a fleabag theater company in Carl Reiner's "Enter Laughing." In her mid-30s at the time, Elaine May was hardly a blushing new talent. But there was something buoyantly fresh about her, then as always, a dewy warmth in her breathy voice, huge almond eyes and the tendency of her hands to flutter about her neck and throat."Daddy, if you don't mind," she told her actor/manager father (played by the florid Jose Ferrer), "I would like to pick my own leading man this time." Her choice was simple: "I want the cute one."Like some Southern belle oddly transplanted to Manhattan, May used her hesitant line readings and dreamy demeanor to create a kind of gentle haze, at once calculated and lullingly innocent. When it came time to snare that cute new leading man, an inept novice played by Reni Santoni, the actress unfurled a glistening comic technique honed onstage and in comedy clubs and improv groups. A red boa slithered and wriggled around her shoulders like a capering snake. Zeroing in for a heavy rehearsal kiss, May scissored her legs to get going and smothered the poor sap before he knew what was coming."Please, darling," she told him in that husky half-whisper of hers, "this is the theater."Born into an itinerant Yiddish theater family, and a child performer herself onstage and on radio, May could have delivered that line in her sleep. Destined for a show business life, she's lived a long, rich and widely undervalued one. From her famous comic partnership with Mike Nichols to her direction of the mega-bomb "Ishtar," May has made waves wherever she landed.On Monday, the publicity-aversive May makes a rare live appearance in a City Arts and Lectures special event at Herbst Theater. At 72, she's earned the lifetime achievement status her fans have long accorded her. But even the most devoted followers of her career are likely to be surprised by something she says or does. Her latest theatrical foray, the 2002 off-Broadway play "Adult Entertainment," was a jolly, sentimental comedy about pornography. May has made a lifelong habit of defying expectations.At the crest of their popularity in 1962, the influential Nichols and May comedy duo broke up. Nichols went on to a sustained megawatt career as a stage and film director and producer, while May has traveled a more winding road of often sly achievements and temperamental dustups.In "Adaptation," a 1969 off-Broadway comedy paired with Terrence McNally's "Next," May compressed American life into the conventions of a game show and loaded the device with softly zinging barbs. "The word Negro," one character says, should only be used in "a sentence that has to do with social justice." In a protest, "signs must be neatly lettered and all requests for peace must begin with please and end with thank you."May wrote, directed and played a timorous botanist, opposite the conniving Walter Matthau, in "A New Leaf" (1971), then feuded bitterly with Paramount over the cuts. She quarreled with the studio again over the unfinished "Mikey and Nicky" (1976). Not that she couldn't be commercial. May wrote the brassy script for "The Birdcage," the 1996Robin Williams/Nathan Lane remake of "La Cage aux Folles," directed by Nichols. According to Hollywood legend, she did crucial and uncredited script work on the 1982 hit "Tootsie." Other screenwriting credits include "Heaven Can Wait" (with Warren Beatty, 1978) and the "Primary Colors" adaptation (1998).Her 1972 film of Neil Simon's "The Heartbreak Kid" is a minor comic masterpiece, directed with a subtle auteurist assurance. With the sun winking dangerously behind him, Charles Grodin betrays his wolfish look early on as an unhappy newlywed who falls in love withCybill Shepherd on his Miami Beach honeymoon. The director's daughter, Jeannie Berlin, plays the hapless wife.
Elaine May
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