Actor’s role is keeper of the Groucho flame
Groucho Marx died 40 years ago, and he’s as timely as ever.
For more than half a century, the comedian told truth to power, making him a perfect fit for 2017.
Even with the big cigar and black-tape mustache.
“This is a time in which we need more Grouchos,” said Frank Ferrante, who plays the legendary comedian in a one-man show, “An Evening With Groucho,” beginning in previews Friday and opening Sunday for a run through May 28 at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Stackner Cabaret, 108 E. Wells St.
The conceit of “An Evening With Groucho” is it’s a show that never really happened: Ferrante plays Marx doing a solo show in 1934, between the run of great comedies he and his brothers — Chico, Harpo and Zeppo — made at Paramount (including “Animal Crackers” and “Duck Soup”) and their lesser hits at MGM (minus Zeppo), starting with the 1935 comedy “A Night at the Opera.”
For Ferrante, who’s been playing Groucho since 1984, it’s missionary work.
“To me, it needs to be shared,” he said of Marx’s comedy. And Ferrante, 53, feels the need to share it. When he was a kid growing up in California, a neighbor told him to turn on the television to watch “A Day at the Races,” the Marx Brothers’ 1937 comedy. By the time the movie was over, Ferrante said, he was smitten.
Ferrante took his fascination with Groucho to college, doing a one-man Marx show for his senior project at the University of Southern California. When he presented it onstage, he invited Arthur Marx, Groucho’s son, and Miriam Marx Allen, the comedian’s daughter — fostering a bond with the family that continues to this day.
At 23, Ferrante played Groucho Off-Broadway in “Groucho: A Life in Revue,” a play written by Arthur Marx. That play encompassed the comedian’s life from teen comedian to his death in 1977 at age 86.
“An Evening With Groucho” is more focused on that sweet spot in Marx’s career when his star power and comic sensibilities were at their peak. Ferrante sings songs from Groucho’s shows — his personal favorite is “Dr. Hackenbush,” cut from the final version of “A Day at the Races” — and tells stories about Marx’s peers, including his brothers.
“In this show, I want to exhilarate the audience in the same way I was exhilarated when I saw ‘A Day at the Races’ for the first time,” Ferrante said.
In recent years, audience interaction has become a bigger and bigger part of “An Evening With Groucho,” with Ferrante/Groucho going into the audience or bringing people onstage and riffing on whatever happens next.
“I think that (interaction) is what people respond to the most,” he said. “… The audience has really helped shape the show. It’s rare, but if I feel it’s not going where I want it to go, I can change gears.”
Ferrante’s career hasn’t been all Groucho, all the time. He plays in and directs regional theater, and has performed in cirque shows in San Francisco and Seattle. He also does voice-over work, including a stint as Patrick’s boss on “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
But his role as the keeper of the Groucho flame comes first.
That keeper part is literal: Arthur Marx, who died in 2011, gave Ferrante the copyrights to much of his father’s material, including about a third of the comedian’s letters. Ferrante said one of his goals is to make more of Groucho’s writings available on Kindle, for what he’s already seeing as a new generation of Marx-ists.
Younger people make up a sizable share of the audience for “An Evening With Groucho,” he said — another sign that Groucho’s as timely as ever.
“I think this is a time when there’s a lot of tension. It’s palpable,” Ferrante said. “When things are difficult in the country, people laugh more.”