Matinee ladies, prepare to swoon: Antonio Banderas is headed back to Broadway.
The Spanish charmer will break some plates in a revival of “Zorba” next season, theater sources say.
This will be the first time he’s been in a show since he headlined the elegant and sexy revival of “Nine” in 2003.
Although Banderas had almost no musical theater experience, he received glowing reviews and sold out the run.
True, you couldn’t always understand what he was saying, thanks to that accent, but it didn’t matter. His charisma overwhelmed the Roundabout Theatre Company’s female subscribers, a few of whom had to be restrained from bounding up on stage to tango with him.
(This ability to drive middle-aged suburban housewives into an absolute frenzy is a trait he shares with that other great Broadway leading man, Hugh Jackman.)
In “Nine,” as Guido Contini, a movie director on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Banderas was witty, warm and heartbreaking — qualities that, sadly, eluded Daniel Day-Lewis, who gives a somber to the point of somnambulant performance in the movie.
Banderas will be the third Zorba on Broadway. Herschel Bernardi starred in the original 1968 production, and Anthony Quinn played the role in a successful 1983 revival.
“Herschel was very honest in the part,” says Joe Stein, who wrote the script. “You believed him as Zorba. Tony was a little flamboyant and self-centered. The guy was a star and he knew it. People wanted his autograph.
“Antonio Banderas is, of course, much younger than Herschel and Tony were, and we’ll have to make some adjustments [in the show] to that. But he will bring his own wonderful personality to it.”
Based on Nikos Kazantzakis’ famous novel “Zorba the Greek” about a young intellectual from Athens and his friendship with a larger-than-life peasant from Crete, “Zorba” has a lovely score by John Kander and Fred Ebb.
Although “Zorba” was a success on Broadway in the ’60s — and Quinn broke house records touring with the revival 20 years later — the show is seldom performed in North America.
“Curiously, it’s done quite often in Europe,” says Stein. “In fact, I just got a large check from Germany, which is very pleasant.”
Banderas, who lives in Los Angeles, will be in New York next week to meet with Kander and Stein. (Ebb died in 2004.)
The revival will be directed by Gary Griffin (“The Color Purple”) and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo (“Jersey Boys”).
The producers are Fran and Barry Weissler, who are out and about raising the money as I write.
In fact, I hear they’re offering a two-for-one deal: Invest in their upcoming revival of “La Cage aux Folles” starring Kelsey Grammer, and you can get into “Zorba” as well.
If Monty Hall were a Broadway producer, he’d be a Weissler!
Congratulations to Paul Libin, vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters and a very influential behind-the-scenes player on Broadway.
(He should be on BroadwaySpace.com’s list of the 50 most powerful people on Broadway, though what do you expect from a Web site that pegs me only at 37 and my dear friend Nathan Lane at 38?)
Last week, Libin was elected chairman of the Broadway League, the organization that represents producers and theater owners.
His first order of business should be to rescind the League’s boneheaded decision to throw the press off the list of Tony voters. The League justified the move by saying the media had a “conflict of interest” because they actually vote for shows they like.
Producers and theater owners, on the other hand, have only the purest of motives: They vote for shows in which they have money.
There is, in fact, a move to reinstate a few critics and reporters because, without them, a lot of small, artistic shows are probably going to get crushed by the commercial behemoths.
But until that happens, the Tony remains a hopelessly compromised, conflict-riddled award administered by those two useless and bloated organizations, the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing.
Save the Tony, Paul!