Jim Brochu made his off-Broadway debut back in 1968 and has worked steadily ever since. Never heard of him? No wonder: He’s what’s known as a “character man” — someone whose quirky personality and lack of matinee-idol looks relegate him to supporting roles.
And when actors like those do land a lead, it’s usually comic rather than romantic.
Some character men become famous — like Zero Mostel, the subject of Brochu’s previous solo, 2009’s “Zero Hour.” But, mostly, we recognize these guys by their faces rather than their names.
In his new off-Broadway offering, “Character Man,” Brochu lovingly covers a whole bunch of them: Mostel, Jack Gilford, Jackie Gleason — but also women like Kathleen Freeman, who played the foil in most of Jerry Lewis’ movies.
Brochu spends most of the time gabbing about his mentor, David Burns, and especially himself — not for nothing is the show subtitled “a musical memoir.”
Like many character actors, Burns was most successful late in life, when he appeared in Broadway hits like “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “Hello, Dolly!” He happened to be a friend of Brochu’s father — a charming, alcoholic widower who dated Joan Crawford in the early ’60s.
“I wanted him to marry her so Joan Crawford could be my mother,” Brochu says dryly. “Think of all the fun we’d have.”
Still, we don’t get many insights about anybody aside from Brochu.
Young Jim got the theater bug early — photos of him as a teen show a distinct resemblance to Jonah Hill. But his first job on Times Square was selling concessions. Acting would have to wait.
Robert Bartley’s production is most compelling when Brochu takes us back to a Broadway where outsize personalities were kind to a young nobody.
Since Brochu wrote the book, he gave himself several songs, including the lengthy “Ya Got Trouble,” from “The Music Man,” and “If I Were a Rich Man,” from “Fiddler on the Roof.” They stop the show, but not in a good way.
More welcome are obscurities like “The Butler’s Song” from the 1976 flop “So Long, 174th Street” — Brochu sold orange juice in the lobby during its abbreviated run.
But what we really want is more anecdotes about those half-forgotten men and women who were Broadway’s life force. Talk about troupers: Burns even died onstage.