A little bit of history is repeating over at the Open Fist Theatre. Ken Ludwig’s zany backstage comedy Moon Over Buffalo opens this Friday, with the distinguished fight choreographer B.H. Barry re-creating the madcap staging that earned Carol Burnett and Philip Bosco Tony nominations when the show opened on Broadway in 1995. In 2010, Barry himself garnered a Tony Award for Excellence for his many contributions for the stage, making him widely recognized as one of the premiere fight choreographers in the world.
Barry, or “B.H.” as he insists on being addressed, is not a man to stand on his laurels. The first line of his professional biography reads “Born In England – Town called Staines. Raised by single parent. Working Class.” After a long and distinguished career on Broadway, in film, and television, the return to his past with Moon Over Buffalo is both a professional and personal pleasure for him, as is working under director Bjorn Johnson, who started off as one of Barry’s own assistants.
“I did the show on Broadway sort of way back when with Carol Burnett and Philip Bosco. We took it to Boston to work on the show, and originally it was written that Philip Bosco’s character “˜George’ was the main character. But after Carol joined the company, everyone soon realized that Carol Burnett was really the star, so Ken Ludwig rewrote it for her so that she could really make use of all of her comedic timing and humor.
“I came along and helped Tom Moore, who was directing it, to put it together. So we came up with all of the comedy bits for Carol, and of course that sort of thing got put into the play script, which is the script that Bjorn is now working off of. So who better to come and do the choreography for it, all of the funny bits, than myself? It was a shortcut. Because Bjorn was an assistant of mine, he and I speak exactly the same language, and I couldn’t work with anyone better. He knew exactly where I was going and could be supportive and also collaborative, which is very important to me, because I want to make sure that it’s his production and not my production.”
For those less unfamiliar with what fight choreographers do, Barry is quick to explain that the title should not be taken completely literally. “There is a fight at the very beginning, but it’s really all of the comedic values of the show that I kind of deal with. All of the funny bits, the farcical staging.”
In terms of staging, did the 99-seat Open Fist Theatre feel a big cramped, after Barry originally worked on the play in Broadway’s 1400-seat Martin Beck (now Al Hirschfeld) Theatre? Not particularly. “Actually, the size of the stage wasn’t bad at all. There’s a reasonable amount of room and I don’t remember having much more room on Broadway. It wasn’t really an enormous stage. Obviously [at the Open Fist] the audience is much smaller, but all in all, the staging was pretty much equal.”
“Of course the blocking is not the same as it was for Carol, because I always adapt the moves to fit the actor, as you do with any type of choreography. No one moves in exactly the same way, so my choreography changed according to the two main actors who were doing it. We came up with a kind of basic format for everyone, and then I adapted accordingly.”
When asked about how he custom-tailors his choreography for each individual production and each performer, Barry says that his method is far more about the function than the form. “My method is comparatively simple, but it requires two questions. The first question is “˜What would be missing if the piece of comedy or the fight wasn’t there?’ You then find out what its function is within the story or the play.
“The first fight in Moon Over Buffalo is to scare the crap out of a young kid who is sitting in the green room waiting for our two leads…So then I go to the characters and ask them “˜what would be missing from your character if I didn’t let you do the fight?’ Then they would answer, “˜I don’t get a chance to show myself being physical’ or “˜we don’t get to demonstrate the nature of our relationship with the other person’. Then I start choreographing with those things in mind. How can they work together to create the illusion that they’re hurting each other so the other guy gets really scared? It’s all determined by the necessity of the actor telling me what would be missing about himself or herself if the action wasn’t there and if they didn’t have the opportunity to do the fight.”
Barry flew to Los Angeles at the beginning of December for only four days to work with the cast. Now back in New York, he admits that he does miss the California sunshine, but he feels that the brief time that he spent was more than enough to get the job done and it’s in capable hands. “Normally I spend about 10 days or so with the actors and see the whole show through to its completion. But because it’s Bjorn and because he knows so well what I do and because I can trust him to take what my initial ideas were and bring them to fruition, the four days that I spent out there were really adequate. I may not be the best, but I’m the quickest [he laughs].”
Because Moon Over Buffalo is usually associated with its original Broadway star, the one and only Carol Burnett, much of the script and the comedy were tailored for her. One of the significant challenges for Johnson and Barry as a team was retooling this production for a different cast.
“Let me give you a little story, a little anecdote, about working with Carol Burnett. There’s a moment in the play where the two characters go out through a swing door. She follows him out, and gets hit in the head by the door, which is funny. So I told her, “˜Okay Carol, this is what we’re going to do. The door opens and one of the characters goes through. Then the door swings back again, and then you start to go through as the door swings back again. If you put your foot down where the door is, it will make a sound and look as if it’s hit you in the head.’
“We tried forever to do this, and she just couldn’t get it…So I told her “˜Okay, Carol. Can you just get yourself to the position where the door can hit you in the head?’ “˜Oh yes,’ she said, “˜I can do that.’ And she did exactly what I’d been asking her to do for the last half hour, but she did it in her way. Carol is a quintessential physical comedian, but she’s used to working from her instincts, and not from a set plan. So a lot of the things that happened in the Broadway production were Carol Burnett’s way of doing physical comedy. When it comes to another actor trying to learn or recapture or relive that performance, that has to be taught.”
“But there are some things that you just can’t duplicate. For example, there is one part in the play where the character George says something totally outrageous, and in the script it says “˜Charlotte [the part Burnett played] staggers back.’ Now, if you remember Carol Burnett, she had the amazing staggering back thing that she did that was totally unique to her. Well, unless you’re Carol Burnett, you can’t do that. So in that moment, the choice had to be different for the actress who is now playing the part.
“Now Bjorn has a good sense of how to make that funny. So when we came to it, we both agreed that the staggering back would probably be wrong, so he made a choice, and he’s probably made a lot more choices since then, to re-adapt the script to fit these performers and the characters. So rather than me trying to kind of re-do what I did on Broadway, Bjorn is bringing his own particular talents to bear. Bjorn has a really good understanding of what it is to be farcical and what it is to be comic. I should note, however, that when you look at the work that the two of us have done together, you cannot see where I left off and he started. There is a true seamlessness, and because Bjorn and I have such similar senses of humor, it works.”
For a man who has spent his career working with the some of the very best in the business in terms of physical comedy, Barry professes that when it comes to the craft of physical comedy, not all performers are created equal. “You approach a play with true comedians in a different way than you approach a play with actors who are being comedians. There is always the age-old question of whether one can learn to be funny. I think there’s a format in which people can be funny. I think it would be shrewd to say that most actors, good actors, have a sort of childlike quality to them in which they know how to be funny. But I think that just a blanket statement that all actors can learn to be funny would be really wrong. Some just don’t have that funny bone or that view of the world that makes a comedian a comedian.”
As far as the Open Fist company is concerned, however, Barry is completely confident that this cast has the comedic chops, and more important, the passion to carry this show””a passion that’s inherent to the nature of the 99-seat company. “I think this cast is going to be spectacular. And one of the reasons why I think they’re going to be spectacular is because they’re doing it for [almost] nothing. You know, people on Broadway, they’re doing it for a relatively larger sum of money. But these smaller companies, they’re doing it because it’s fun and because they’re really having a good time. Sometimes when I’ve worked with other companies, there’s been this kind of dreary “˜Is that all we get?’, sort of judgmental attitude. I think that anyone who goes to see this production, and the spirit in which it’s acted, they’re going to have a really good time at the theater.”
Moon Over Buffalo, presented by Open Fist Theatre Company. Opens tonight. Plays Fri.-Sat. 8 pm. Sun. 2 pm. Through March 10. Tickets: $25.  The Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. www.openfist.org. 323-882-6912
***All Moon Over Buffalo production photos by Maia Rosenfeld
