'Scarlet' Fever
Broadway's Original Pimpernel
-- Douglas Sills --
Swashbuckles into Sacramento
Douglas Sills was happy to be back in San Francisco.
"It's great to be here. I love the weather. I love the Bay from the top of Nob Hill. I love the smells on the street," he said. "I have all these favorite haunts: a little place in Golden Gate Park, a place in Buena Vista Park, a couple of stores I'm crazy about -- Button Down and Fillamento -- and Cafe Flore on Market and Noe."
Sills learned the city while studying at the American Conservatory Theatre there. On this trip, he'd had no time to get out because he was doing eight performances of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" in five days. He will have the same daunting schedule when the national touring company of the Broadway show moves into Sacramento's Community Center Theater on Tuesday.
"I'm very excited about getting back to Sacramento," he said. "I love it. I think the mall with the Capitol is just great."
He has performed here twice before. In 1992, he was Dr. Craven in "The Secret Garden" at the Community Center Theater, and two years later he came back as Gaylord Ravenal in "Showboat" at the Music Circus. He wondered which Sacramento restaurants are the popular after-theater spots these days.
Sills was on the phone from his San Francisco hotel room, still in his robe and drinking coffee late one morning. He talked about "The Scarlet Pimpernel," the show that made him one of Broadway's brightest stars -- in his Broadway debut. In 1998, he got a Tony nomination for his dual role as Percy and the Scarlet Pimpernel, but lost out to Alan Cumming of "Cabaret." The other nominees were Brian Stokes Mitchell and Peter Friedman, for "Ragtime."
"It was a very strong year," Sills said, "and to be nominated with those guys was great. I was disappointed, but for a man to reach that point in his career and to have his parents there, and to be on the Tonys (telecast) with the cast that made it possible, was a tremendous thrill."
Sills will leave the national tour in 10 weeks, after "The Scarlet Pimpernel" plays Los Angeles. He lives there. He also maintains an apartment in New York, where he lived while doing the show on Broadway.
Sills grew up in a Detroit suburb, the youngest of four children. He remembers seeing the 1935 British film version of "The Scarlet Pimpernel," starring Leslie Howard. It made an impression. And after doing some TV work, appearing on "Party of Five," "Sisters," "Empty Nest" and "Murphy Brown," he heard in 1997 about the auditions for "The Scarlet Pimpernel."
"I liked what I thought was the opportunity to apply so many principles of classical training to a musical," he said of the leading role of a swashbuckling Englishman who risks his life to save French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution. "I thought it would be easy for me to stand out in that setting. I thought it had great wit, tremendous style and humor."
As the Pimpernel, Sills participates in a good bit of swordplay. The show is physical and exhausting, particularly on days when he has both matinee and evening performances.
"It's partly due to what I helped create," Sills said, laughing. "I vacuum-packed the role around me and my ideas, from the lines I helped write to the costume I helped create. That's my own fault. And that's the fun of it. The truth is, you don't think quite so clearly about endurance during rehearsals."
Rehearsals began in June 1997, and the show opened that November to less-than-enthusiastic reviews. A fan base that emerged from the Internet, calling itself the League of "The Scarlet Pimpernel," encouraged the producers to save the show rather than shut it down. "The Scarlet Pimpernel" did close for 10 days in July 1998 and reopened as a recast, reworked and rewritten production. From then on, it was a hit.
Sills said in an interview for Talkin' Broadway (which can be found on the show's Web site, www.thepimpernel.com) that the show's early incarnation was devastating to his health, that it "aged" him.
"I wasn't ready," Sills said. "I over-sang during previews and rehearsals. I had a real endurance problem. It was a 24-7 thing, very intense. Your life is all about the show. You know when you grow up in regional theater that you'll do a play for a month. But to do the same piece for years, eight times a week, is nearly inhuman."
A voice coach, a healthful diet of salads, vegetables and protein shakes, and regular workouts at the gym have Sills in the best shape of his life. Robert Longbottom, the show's director and choreographer, told Sills that if he ever thought about doing "Hamlet," this was the time.
He did plenty of Shakespeare in the late '80s and early '90s, appearing in the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival's productions of "Othello," "Cymbeline," "Twelfth Night" and "Merry Wives of Windsor." He has no immediate plans to pursue the "Hamlet" idea, though.
"After I leave the tour in Los Angeles," he said, "I will check into a sanitarium. I'm kidding. I'm gonna rest and see what happens. As an actor, I feel there are two roads for professional life: One is the projects you have ideas for, and the other is where projects come to you. I hope both roads are busy."
He may take a role in a Southern California repertory production next year and is considering making a record. Meanwhile, he knows he'll miss being the Scarlet Pimpernel, his alter ego for nearly three years.
"I like him," Sills said, "because he starts out as a very sheltered guy. Then he marries this girl and, in a couple of moments on stage, the audience gets to witness major life crises. That's exciting to portray. He's generally a great guy who's creative and draws on qualities he didn't know he had. Those are wonderful moments in life. He finds the quality of leadership he didn't know he had. That's something I hope is in me."
Sills has never been bored with the show.
"I'm not locked into certain blockings or line readings, and when you train as intensely as I did at the ACT, you learn skills to keep a show fresh, to find something new every night," he said.
"And each audience is like a new lover. You have to treat each of them differently, and that keeps things interesting."
-Dixie Reed, Sacramento Bee
April 16, 2000
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