Actress’ experience aids ‘Grumpy Old Men’ musical
Actress Miranda Jane is in her fifth production of “Grumpy Old Men: The Musical,” which is receiving its Arkansas premiere starting Wednesday at Little Rock’s Murry’s Dinner Playhouse.
“She’s the reason we’re doing this show,” quips director Don Bolinger.
Ariel Truax is the beautiful, eccentric and charming newcomer who finds herself at the center of a rivalry between two aging Minnesota codgers, once childhood friends, who have been feuding for most of their lives but find invigoration in their shared “affection” for their new neighbor.
Tom Cooper plays John Gustafson with Jeff Bailey as Max Goldman, played respectively in the 1993 film by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Tim Cooper, Moriah Patterson, Briana East, Glen Gilbert, Christopher Straw, Leigh Anne Ralston, Anthony McBride, Roger Eaves, Katie Greer, Don Bolinger, Natalie Cannerday, Sarah Ring Nichols and Drew Reynolds fill out the cast.
Jane first took on the role of Ariel, whom Ann-Margret played in the movie, in the second U.S. production of the musical in 2019 at Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse in Rock Island, Ill., one of the Quad Cities. The show had its U.S. premiere at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine, in 2018, and its West Coast debut at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in La Mirada, Calif., later in 2019. “A whole lot of the Maine cast transferred” to the Southern California production, Jane recalls.
“I did the show three more times for Prather Productions in Pennsylvania and Florida.”
Neil Berg wrote the music, with lyrics by Nick Meglin and a book by Dan Remmes. Jane notes the songs span a variety of musical styles, but, Bolinger archly notes, “You don’t walk away [from the show] humming anything.”
Jane says she had to be careful in once again taking on the role of Ariel, because in the six years since its premiere, “there have been some subtle changes and rewrites in the lyrics and the dialogue.” The character, however, hasn’t changed: “Luckily, I didn’t have to do much there. It was wonderfully established by Ann-Margret in the movie.”
Her big challenge, she adds, “is how do you inhabit a character that [people] are already familiar with.”
It’s a challenge she handled playing Suzanne Sugarbaker in “Designing Women” at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre in January 2022, Linda Bloodworth Thomason’s adaptation/update of the same name that ran seven seasons, 1986-93, on CBS.
The goal in both situations, she says, is “to keep it familiar, but keep it fresh — honor it, but don’t ape it.”
Helping her out is that Remmes fleshes Ariel out beyond the movie character, which she labeled as “stereotypical,” and “gives her more of a life of her own.”
Cooper, on the other hand, says he’s coming at his character “from a place of complete ignorance.”
“It’s been years since I saw the movie, so it’s a fresh thing for me,” he says.
On chart of 1 to 10, he says, his “grumpiness index” is “about an 8.”
“I’ve been working on this my whole life,” he adds.
Bolinger says his biggest challenge is adapting the movie’s many Minnesota town settings, which include ice fishing on a lake, the road that separates characters’ houses and several interiors, “and making it happen in our little space.”
Jane says this story is, if not unique, certainly rare: principal characters in at least their late middle age falling in love.
“You don’t normally see this in this age demographic,” she says. “Most love stories these days are about people in their 20s.”