A Study in 'Scarlet'
Star Douglas Sills brings a retooled 'Pimpernel' to Shubert
It is a most unlikely story. Thirty-something actor who has been performing in the hinterlands for years with occasional forays into television sitcoms, decides to give up acting and go back to Plan A: Law school - his goal before the acting bug (Plan B) bit.
After passing the test for law school entrance, his agent convinces him to go on one more audition; this time for a lead role in a new Broadway musical. Naturally, he assumes he couldn't possibly try out for the title role, never having performed on or off-Broadway before.
Amazingly, the directory doesn't want him for the secondary lead, but says he'd be perfect for the lead. He not only gets the part, but in his first Broadway outing, is nominated as Best Actor in a Musical.
What makes this unlikely story even more unlikely is that even after "The Scarlet Pimpernel" starring Douglas Sills received three Tony nominations - best musical, best book, as well as best actor - new producers arrive and decide to redirect and rechoreograph the whole show. Restaged for a third time to accomodate a smaller theater, the musical is now remounted again for its national road tour, which opens at New Haven's Shubert Performing Arts Center, Sunday through March 4.
Sills, who has been in versions one, two and four, recalls, "There was a time when we were performing one version at night and rehearsing another one during the day.
"The changes make my character more three-dimensional, darker, less good-natured," he said about the role that keeps him onstage for 19 of the play's 22 scenes and requires 13 costume changes. "And, of course, my character, Percy, is at least three different characters: the fun-loving playboy bachelor, the betrayed husband, and The Scarlet Pimpernel in all his disguises."
The story of a kind of 18th-century Superman tells of the British aristocrat who decides to rescue the victims of the Reign of Terror that took place during the French Revolution, in which members of royalty were being condemned to the guillotine. Known as The Scarlet Pimpernel, he keeps his identity hidden under a myriad of disguises, even from his wife, a beautiful French actress whom he believes may be working against him.
"At this time, anyone thought to have anything to do with subverting the new republic was beheaded," Sills explained. "There was no freedom of speech, no courts and even innocent members of the aristocracy were victims of rumor and innuendo; so thousands were unjustly imprisoned and beheaded as the populace watched in the streets.
"Percy, according to Baroness Orczy's 1902 novel, was sort of the hunk of the day and he picks a bride who is like picking a 42nd Street hooker because a French actress was considered tantamount to a prostitute and his society rejected her even though she was the smartest and most beautiful woman in Europe. And two men are in love with her: Percy and his enemy Chauvelin, who is like a Hitler henchman.
"In order to hide his heroic dimension as Pimpernel, Percy deflects suspicion by behaving like a shallow, flightly dandy; a fop who thinks only of himself."
The demanding role, which Sills calls "Hamlet with music," features fight choreography swordplay, requiring the classically trained Sills to stay in perfect physical shape.
"I fence two hours a day," he said. "I also do yoga for flexibility and meditation; I go to the gym to keep my body in tone and lift weights for alignment. I also find I have to eat at certain times of the day; carbohydrates are not helpful, but I need lots of protein, fruit and fluids. I also have a humidifier to keep my voice moist and I can't use the phone because I need to save my voice, so I use strictly E-mail."
It's all worth it to this "overnight star" who remembers crying himself to sleep after seeing his first Broadway show, "A Chorus Line," because "I thought I'm just a kid from Detroit. I'll never get into this business.
"I had wanted to be an actor ever since I was a kid at summer camp, but because I never thought it would happen, I took the test for law school after graduation from college. Then I had a wonderful conversation with my father who said, 'You can go to law school any time, why not try acting.' He was drawn to my passion for it."
Trained at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre, he chose to focus on classical theatre, inspired by such actors as Laurence Olivier, Alec Guiness and Ralph Richardson and because he believed in keeping the literature alive.
"This role," he says about plays Pimpernel, "uses everything I was trained to do: dialect, singing, fencing; it's an actor's dream. It's also the dream of any kid who ever made a fort out of sheets and pillows and dreamt of being a hero."
-Gloria Cole, Connecticut Post
February 17, 2000
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