True story: Two women walked out of a matinee of David Mamet’s “China Doll” at intermission. Said one to the other, in a strong Long Island accent: “Michael Riedel is going to have a f - - king field day with this one!”
Let me assure my public in Patchogue: “China Doll” is indeed, in keeping with the Mamet idiom, a f - - king disaster. And nobody knows that better than its star, Al Pacino.
Friends of the actor say they’ve never seen him so despondent. He sits in his dressing room after the show “totally lost,” one says. And sources say he’s getting no help from Mamet, who saw two dress rehearsals and the first preview and then vamoosed to California.
“Al’s worked with David enough to know that you can’t change a word of his script,” a source says. “But David’s not there to do it.”
Apparently, director Pam MacKinnon isn’t able to help. When she tried giving Pacino a note, sources say he snarled: “I’m not your f - - king puppet, Pam!” Since then, she’s been spotted nervously pacing at the back of the theater.
“She can’t handle big stars,” says a backstage source who’s worked with MacKinnon before. “She folded when Glenn Close snapped at her in ‘A Delicate Balance.’ ”
I tried to reach producer Jeffrey Richards, but an assistant told me he was tied up in a rehearsal for “Fiddler on the Roof.”
I e-mailed MacKinnon for a comment but, as of press time, she’d yet to respond.
Pacino must shoulder some of the blame for what’s unfolding at the Schoenfeld, where the show opens on Nov. 19. Sources say he’s struggling with his lines, and several teleprompters are embedded in the set. Two are behind columns on either side of the stage; a third is behind a couch. Pacino also spends a lot of time starring at a laptop computer “reading his lines,” a source says.
The blocking is, to put it politely, bizarre. Sources say Pacino seldom looks at his co-star, Christopher Denham, because he’s too busy looking for his lines. Some of them, they say, are fed through the Bluetooth headset worn by Pacino’s character, a billionaire who’s just bought an airplane.
The other day, in an apparent departure from the script, Pacino said, “There’s static in this thing — I can’t hear.” He gave it to Denham, who walked offstage and returned with a new earpiece.
Preview audiences are having none of it. The exodus at intermission is practically a stampede, and sources say some have angrily demanded refunds.
Those who make it through the second act are treated to an ending involving a model plane Pacino uses to bash in someone’s head. The “metal” plane is made of cardboard, which becomes clear when it crumples like a coffee cup from a Greek diner. The audience roars with laughter.
Poor Denham has little to do but sit around and listen. Maybe they should play “The Godfather: Part II” on one of those teleprompters to remind him what a great actor Pacino once was.
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As my colleague Elisabeth Vincentelli points out, Stephen Karam’s new play “The Humans,” now at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre, is terrific. It’s moving to Broadway’s Helen Hayes, where “Dames at Sea” is sinking fast.
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I just got the 40th anniversary reissue of “A Chorus Line” from iTunes, and it’s wonderful. I especially love the bonus tracks of composer Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Ed Kleban singing songs that never made it into the show. It’s especially touching to hear Hamlisch humming his beautiful melody to “What I Did for Love,” before Kleban had finished the lyric. Broadway history in the making!