SEPTEMBER 12, 1997 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 19

EVENINGS OUT

An actress and an opera singer, both larger than life

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Great lives have fascinated the common people since times immemorial. What is even more intriguing is when we can watch great lives intersect. Terrence McNally's touring production of Master Class with Faye Dunaway in the lead role of Maria Callas is a great case in point.

In recent years, McNally has enthralled audiences, in particular gay audiences, with his award winning and widely produced productions including A Perfect Ganesh, Kiss of

the Spider Woman, Love! Valour! Compassion! and now Master Class.

Perhaps the most prolific living playwright in America today, McNally has won more Tony awards in the last few years than any other playwright. In 1996, he added a Best Play Tony for Master Class to his previous two for Love! Valour! and Spider Woman.

In Master Class McNally depicts the reallife master class conducted by opera great Callas with aspiring singers at Juilliard in 1971. Callas pushed the envelope of the art form, taking it to new heights and increasing levels of popularity. McNally, through a series of master classes, exposes the witty, explosive, dramatic and passionate Callas as an extraordinary woman who came from more than ordinary roots.

The play itself has done well with the critics since its Broadway opening, but it is Dunaway's performance in the touring production that is earning the ravest of reviews. Markland Taylor, in a review in the trade magazine Variety wrote that "Terrence McNally may have written Master Class for Zoe Caldwell, but Faye Dunaway claims it as her own in this gleaming, impeccably produced touring production of the Broadway hit. The Oscar-winning actress delivers a full-size bravura characterization of Maria Callas."

Dunaway herself acknowledges that response to the tour, since its start from Boston in November, "has been phenomenal and breaking all house records."

The lead role is one which stretches the acting muscle across a wide emotional spectrum from its sharp humor to its tough and vulnerable emotional edge. Dunaway knows that it takes a lot to "keep it alive and moving." McNally has seen Dunaway's Callas and has loved it. Dunaway holds the film rights and she is "hoping that he will write the screenplay." Dunaway said that McNally had paid her an "incredible compliment,” when he said "that I was the best teacher." McNally was obviously referring to Dunaway's portrait of Callas as a master teacher, a role that Dunaway takes seriously in her own life as well.

Dunaway has conducted several master classes of her own, teaching aspiring actors about what it takes to be good at the art and the craft of performing. She recently conducted a class in Chicago at DePaul University and has returned to her alma maters Florida State University and Boston University to teach there as well. She said that she has taken on this additional responsibility because she wants "to give back because it matters to pass it on."

She tells her students that it is "not easy to navigate these waters because people are always pushing you into being who you are not." When asked how she manages to balance being a celebrity with being a human being, Dunaway said that "it is most important to guard one's privacy."

"I try to stay as real as possible and to connect with people as a person, not as a celebrity." She continued that she has "to keep working at maintaining a good career and a normal existence, and it is about doing good work and being kind to people."

Reflecting on the role of the paparazzi in the recent death of Princess Diana, Dunaway said, "The love that the people have for their idols, celebrities and heroes is pure, simple and beautiful. But then come along certain members of the media and have to make it all into a negative thing."

"I have been affected by the paparazzi in the same way as Princess Diana, God bless her soul, although not to the same end result."

Dunaway added that she too, like Princess Diana and Callas, has "been hurt very much" and identifies this invasion as a "kind of rape."

JOAN MARCUS

Faye Dunaway portrays Maria Callas in Master Class.

"They take possession of you, who you are and your loved ones,” she added, making no bones about the fact that such experiences are destructive for both the celebrities and the

masses.

Dunaway didn't dwell long on the gloom and quickly acknowledged the fact that she has had good experiences with her fans and her following. Like Callas, Dunaway has a significant gay following. She most recently appeared in a Showtime film of Twilight of the Golds, and with Master Class, such a following is sure to increase. Dunaway said that she is "grateful for anyone who connects with me" when asked about her gay fans.

"Ultimately people are people,” she said. "What is important in the end is the way in which people connect, with gentle kindness and the way in which we give back to others, regardless of the boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, and other such demarcations."

Being the consummate artist that Dunaway has become legendary for, it should come as no surprise that she has researched the life and role of Callas very carefully. She listened to 20 recordings, pored over even more books, studied photographs, and in general immersed herself in the complex and torrid life and works of Callas.

The temptation to draw parallels between Callas and Dunaway is irresistible, and Dunaway is aware that there is a deep kinship.

"We have both had world careers, and I know that it takes something special to be able to handle that, to constantly be in the eye of the hurricane," said Dunaway. Then with a warm and knowing laugh she added, “we are the same kind of girl. We both had a hunger, a desire and a commitment to do things in a big way."

Dunaway is referring to the fact that both she and Callas originated from humble beginnings. Callas was born Anna Maria Cecilia Kalogeropoulos to immigrant parents in Brooklyn Heights, in 1923. She was quickly whisked away to Greece to study opera and thus began her legendary career at a very young age. Dorothy Faye Dunaway was born in 1941 and moved around a lot because of her Army sergeant father. In her 1995 autobiography Waiting for Gatsby, Dunaway observes that deep down she was a "poor Southern girl from the wrong side of the tracks."

However deep the kinship may run, Dunaway is astutely aware of the differences. Unlike Callas, who died in 1977, Dunaway has been blessed with "a second career, and I am very lucky in this way."

"Callas was dead before she got to my current age," said Dunaway, “and I am more

blessed than she was." In particular, Dunaway counts among her most prized blessings her 16-year-old son, Liam O'Neill. Dunaway's "second career" was preceded by a particularly dazzling and exceptional first career. She broke onto the scene with her Broadway debut in A Man for All Seasons and her film debut was in The Happening. Among Dunaway's most well known films are Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown (she was nominated for Academy Awards for her role in both films), and Network, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar.

Dunaway has become actively involved in developing feature films and television projects for her own company. When asked why she has chosen to take on this role, she answered, “I must because people can't read my mind about the type of work I want to do and the type of roles I want to play."

In addition to the film version of Master Class, Dunaway will also be directing a film soon, a challenge she believes she is well equipped for. She knows that she "can get the performances from the actors" that she wants and she "has learned so much from all the other directors and artists" she has worked with.

Callas' life was a paradox in many ways, particularly in the way her singing seemed so real and the way in which her life seemed so soap-operatic. But the bigger irony is that modern celebrityhood has been based on the public's insistence on following the innermost churnings in the lives of our stars. And yet, upon closer examination, lives larger than ours always seem to want desperately to remain real and connect with everyday folk. Once again Maria Callas' life, and Faye Dunaway's words here, are great cases in point.

Master Class is about two consummate artists who take their art seriously and who have both enthralled audiences all over the globe. McNally's play is ultimately a homage to art, great artists and the sacrifices they make in order to become legendary and transcendent.

In Master Class there is a line, transcribed almost directly from a one of Callas's classes at Julliard. She says, “A performance is a struggle. You have to win. The audience is the enemy-we have to bring them to their knees."

Master Class will play in Cincinnati, September 16 to 28, at the Aronoff Center; call 513-241-7469 for tickets. It will then move to the Palace Theater in Columbus, September 30 to October 5; call 614-431-3600 for tickets.

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