Williamson’s jinks landed him on the front of the page.
Unpredictable Nicol Williamson, who dies in December, crossed swords in “I Hate Hamlet” with Evan Handler — who walked offstage after Williamson hit him with a prop. (
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In London, Nicol Williamson is remembered for celebrated performances in “Hamlet,” “Waiting for Godot” and “Inadmissible Evidence.”
But around Broadway, he’ll always be remembered for his bizarre — sometimes hilarious — antics, onstage and off.
Williamson, whose death from cancer on Dec. 16, at age 75, was announced this week, first wound up in the Broadway gossip columns in 1966. He was in Philadelphia for the out-of-town tryout of “Inadmissible Evidence,” which producer David Merrick had brought over from London.
During the intermission, Merrick fired the director, Anthony Page, one of Williamson’s closest friends.
“When he found out,” Page recalls, “he said he was leaving as well. Merrick, who wanted to close the play, said, ‘That’s fine. We don’t need you either.’ Nicol was drinking a beer, and he threw it in Merrick’s face. He started walking back to his dressing room, but Merrick pursued him. They entered into a fight — not a very courageous one; they took timid pokes at each other — but finally Nicol knocked him into a trash can.”
The play made it to Broadway, and Williamson received a Tony nomination — partly, it was said, because he had the guts to trash (so to speak) the fearsome Merrick.
Ten years later, Williamson was back on Broadway playing Henry VIII in Richard Rodgers’ musical, “Rex.”
The musical was struggling, but Williamson refused to do any publicity.
One night, as the cast members took their curtain calls, a chorus boy said, “It’s a wrap!” Williamson thought he said, “It’s crap!” He marched over to the kid and slapped him across the face.
The producer called his press agent, a young Jeffrey Richards, and said, “I don’t want this to get out.” Richards’ next call was from The Post’s Earl Wilson. “I hear Nicol slapped an actor in front of 1,200 people,” the columnist said.
The next night, television crews were outside the theater. When Williamson saw Richards backstage, he said, “Well, Jeffrey, I finally did some publicity for you.”
Those incidents, however, were just warm-ups for the infamous performance — May 3, 1991 — of Paul Rudnick’s “I Hate Hamlet.” Williamson was playing the ghost of John Barrymore. Evan Handler was playing a successful TV actor who’s rehearsing a production of “Hamlet.” That night, during one of their scenes, Williamson departed from the script and shouted at Handler: “Put some life in it! Use your head! Give it more life!”
Then, when they launched into the sword-fighting scene, Williamson smacked Handler on the backside with the flat of his sword. Handler walked off the stage and out the stage door. He was still wearing his tights. He told the stage manager: “I’ve had enough of this stuff.”
Williamson turned to the audience and said, “Should I sing?”
The brouhaha wound up on the front page of The Post.
Handler, who never returned to the play, later told me the whack had left a “6-inch, deep-purple bruise on my right buttock.”
During the remainder of the run, Williamson gave bizarre curtain speeches, often urging the audience to “go home and have great sex.”
Alcohol had a lot to do with Williamson’s antics.
“He drank to medicate himself,” says Page. “When he was in New York, he used to go to a bar called Jimmy Ryan’s and drink and sing, often by himself, until 4 in the morning, and then sleep all day. He was a very lonely man, and he had a great contempt for people. But his talent was vast. I remember in ‘I Hate Hamlet’ he did a bit of ‘Richard III,’ and it was electrifying. This, I remember thinking, is what Shakespeare should be like.”
There was a footnote to “I Hate Hamlet.”
Nathan Lane was appearing in “On Borrowed Time” back then. One night, he lost his balance and fell out of a tree.
He told The Times: “Nicol Williamson pushed me.”