'Scarlet' Fever
With Dash and Flash, Douglas Sills Plays
the Masked Hero in 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'
Douglas Sills says he still wants to be the bad guy. That, in fact, was the role he was preparing for in 1997 when he was asked to audition for "The Scarlet Pimpernel."
But producers of the Nan Knighton-Frank Wildhorn musical didn't see him that way. They insisted he play the hero in the Broadway adaptation of the classic Baroness Orczy story, a move that eventually gave him Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award nominations.
The move led to a role he has done for close to 21/2 years and is playing at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. The show currently is in previews and will formally open May 3.
This is a last hurrah for Sills, who will leave the play when it completes its Ahmanson run on June 18. His plans include preparing for upcoming appearances as Mack Sennett in a Los Angeles staging of "Mack and Mabel" and Benedict in a South Coast Repertory presentation of "Much Ado About Nothing." But Sills says he would like to come back to the "Pimpernel" some day, and he still wants to be the heavy.
"They are always more fun," he says. "The interesting thing for the actor is trying to find out why the character is doing what he is doing and the shows always revolve about villains because they are always creating things for the heroes."
Sills portrays Sir Percy, a seemingly harmless fop who is the dashing Scarlet Pimpernel, the mysterious masked man who regularly crosses the English Channel to France to rescue innocent victims of the French Revolution.
Sills says he will always be grateful to Kevin Kline, who was offered the part first and turned it down, giving Sills the opportunity to become a classic figure. "The Pimpernel was the very first masked hero," he says, noting how the character paved the way for so many others on the printed page, on the stage and in films and television. And, he adds, the character has always been popular in the United States. "I think Americans are suckers for disguises, adventures and underdogs, and Percy has all these things.
"He's really an everyman, a regular guy faced with these unusual circumstances. He is really four characters in one -- the ordinary man, the fop, a Belgian spy and, of course, the masked Pimpernel.
"Just look at the plot. He brings a bride over from France, a French actress, and in the circumstances of that day this can be the equivalent of picking up a prostitute on (New York's) 42nd Street. Then it turns out that she is not who she appears to be."
This series of events may border on the bizarre, but Sills feels they help an audience relate to the character. "We've all been lied to. We've all faced loves that have gone wrong."
Not all the adventure has been scripted since "The Scarlet Pimpernel" came to Broadway and later embarked on a national tour. There was, for example, the night an understudy went on for the villain. All went well until he and Sills tangled in one of the many sword fight scenes. They are carefully choreographed and practiced before each performance to keep things safe. In this case, someone zigged when he should have zagged. "I got poked in the butt," Sills says.
In a few instances some actresses got too close to the combatants and were hit, not seriously but enough to be bruised. And there was an evening in Seattle when Sills went to the wings for a costume change that required the quick assistance of a dresser. It turned out to be too quick. "He yanked at my boot," Sills says. "My foot came flying up and broke his nose."
The tour has been out for seven weeks and seems to have overcome its mishaps.
Besides, Sills considers the current engagement a major perk. "I'm from Detroit, but I lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, in the Fairfax district," he says. "I've looked forward to returning there." On the other hand, he has had to exercise a large amount of self-control as far as Fairfax's heralded delis are concerned. "You have to be careful with the tight costumes we have to fit into."
-Bob Sokolsky, The Press-Enterprise
April 26, 2000
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