Kevin or out?
Kevin Kline, who could have been the finest stage actor of his generation had he bothered to work more, is suddenly on the prowl for new plays.
A few weeks ago, he appeared, opposite Sigourney Weaver, in a reading of a Theresa Rebeck play called “Poor Behavior.”
He played an obnoxious snob to a fare-thee-well. He was so much fun that, as one producer observed, “You see why he’s at the top of everybody’s casting wish list, even though he turns us down all the time.”
True to form, Kline’s apparently decided not to do “Poor Behavior” on Broadway in the fall.
But last week, he starred in yet another reading of a new play, this one for Manhattan Theatre Club.
The play is called “The Columnist.” It’s by David Auburn, who wrote the Pulitzer-winning drama “Proof.”
The subject is the political columnist Joseph Alsop.
As so often happens with dead newspapermen, Alsop’s pretty much forgotten today. But in his prime — from about 1940 to 1970 — he wielded enormous power. His column, which he launched in the Herald Tribune when he was just 27, eventually appeared three times a week in hundreds of newspapers, including the New York Post.
His sources included congressmen, Supreme Court justices, CIA directors, ambassadors, kings, prime ministers and presidents. He was an early champion of John F. Kennedy, who, on the eve his inauguration, dropped by Alsop’s townhouse for a midnight brandy.
Early in his career, Alsop supported FDR and the New Deal. In the 1950s, he attacked Joseph McCarthy. In the ’60s and ’70s, he was a ferocious anti-communist and strong supporter of the war in Vietnam.
A member of the WASP elite, he was an unapologetic snob. Traveling through the Far East during World War II, he was arrested by the Japanese and briefly sent to a detainment camp.
“I had to wash my own clothes for the first and, thank God, the only time in my life,” he wrote in his memoirs.
An interesting life, to be sure, but where’s the drama?
As it turns out, Alsop was gay — a fact he kept secret, since it would have ruined him with the Washington establishment over which he presided.
In 1957, while reporting from Moscow, he hooked up with a cute young Russian in his hotel room. The boy was a KGB lure; the tryst was secretly photographed.
The Soviets reportedly tried to blackmail Alsop. But he stood up to them, told his editors about the incident, and kept right on castigating the Russians in his column.
The story was gossiped about in Washington circles for years. It came out into the open in 1970 when the photos were anonymously mailed to rival columnists, including Art Buchwald, who attacked Alsop for supporting the Vietnam War.
Buchwald tore up the photos, later telling a reporter, “I don’t give a damn what a guy’s sexual proclivities are, as long as they don’t involve me.”
“The Columnist” deals with this incident, while also examining the power of the press and insider Washington politics. It’s loosely based on Alsop’s memoir, “I’ve Seen the Best of It,” as well as Robert Merry‘s biography “Taking on the World.”
The play, according to several Manhattan Theatre Club sources, isn’t quite there yet.
But the director, Daniel Sullivan, has a good track record of helping writers shape interesting ideas for plays into actual plays. He had a lot to do with the success of “Proof.”
Kline, of course, was terrific.
He captured Alsop’s arrogance, snobbery, elegance and slight queeniness.
This one sounds promising.
Let’s hope Kevin doesn’t live up to his reputation and “deKline” the job.
