The Graduate
The Gielgud Theatre
London, England
March 7, 2001
I was in London the week of March 5, 2001 to catch Amanda Donohoe in the stage production of The Graduate. Initially, I didn’t think I would make it to England, but the timing and travel arrangements worked out, so I was excited to be able to go. I spent quite a bit of time in London and around England a couple years ago, so my plan was to just catch the show, check out a few museums, have a few pints and enjoy the city with my wife. We had a good time and enjoyed great meals at Belgo Nord, Monte’s (current home of Jamie Oliver, aka The Naked Chef), and caught the exhibits at The Tate, National Portrait Gallery, and The Courtald Gallery.
We went to the show on Wednesday, March 7 and I was excited and a bit nervous all day. Earlier in the afternoon, we went to the theatre so I could pick up our tickets I booked online. The booking worked well and they had the tickets waiting for me. There are several pictures of Ms. Donohoe outside the theatre and I'll post these soon.
As it gets closer to show time, it starts to rain and the food and tube service are really slow (there have been security alerts and delays due to Real IRA bombings). I'm a bit worried we'll be late, but we make it to the theatre at 7:30 and I can finally relax.
We walk around back of the theatre and I ask a woman at the stage exit whether it would be possible to have Ms. Donohoe sign a program for me. She smiles and says to come back at 10:30, she's usually out here about then.
The Gielgud is a lovely theatre; our seats are in the Dress Circle which is above the stalls but set back a bit. These provide a nice view and comfortable seats. I smile as I see you can rent a set of opera glasses for 40 p; I have a feeling many men will be taking advantage of that offer tonight. The theatre is almost sold out; there are only a few seats up in the top empty, not bad for a Wednesday night
The house lights dim, the music of Simon and Garfunkel comes over the PA and a voice reminds us that The Graduate is set in 1963, 20 years before the invention of the portable phone. (Side note – What is it with the folks in London and cell phones? I have never seen more people with cell phones glued to their ears, not even in Tokyo. It's incredibly annoying and rude. Is it a mandatory skill to be able to smoke, juggle a cell phone and walk in London? )
The play opens with Benjamin (Andres Williams) in an uncertain state following his graduation, not sure of what he’s going to do with his life. Party guests are gathered outside waiting for him, but after a brief talk with his father, he just wants to be left alone. His life is about to change as Mrs. Robinson (Amanda Donohoe) enters and takes the stage. In a brash American accent, she asks Ben to help her unzip her dress so she can rest for a bit. She manipulates him until he nervously says, "Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me…aren’t you?" She skewers him with a look and Ben apologizes. She runs to the bathroom as Mr. Robinson comes into Ben’s room. When he leaves, she runs out the bathroom and stands against Ben's door, totally nude. The subtle lighting works well. The scene shocks, but isn’t glaring or gratuitous. She says quickly, "I want you to know I’m available to you anytime." Her body is incredible, taught, trim, and muscular. She is in amazing shape, maybe the best shape of her life. Ben is shaken and Andres does a good job of finding the uncertain, awkward, but still striving –to- be- a- man center of the character. He ultimately finds his nerves and Ben and Mrs. Robinson’ affair continues over a montage of scenes.
Over the course of the play, Amanda Donohoe manages to find a nice mixture of steeliness, boredom, directness, and wicked satire in the character. I enjoyed her performance, but couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like on film or in a very small theatre space. The Gielgud is a fairly big theatre and the characters are American, but I would be curious to see her play the part more subdued or with an English accent. I can easily imagine Amanda Donohoe in a close up, softly saying, "Would you like me to seduce you?" in her lovely English accent vs. the broader, brasher American accent projected to the rear of the stalls reading. But, that’s the fascinating difference between stage and screen and this is likely the right choice for the material and space. It’s great to see Ms. Donohoe exercise her acting prowess and command a stage, all high heels, angles, and wound up sexuality.
The stage set and lighting are minimal, but very inventive, evoking Benjamin’s bedroom, a dorm, a church, a sleazy bar, a classy hotel, a cheap hotel, etc. The dozens of shuttered doors mirror the secrets and barriers between the characters and offer a neat, spare visual field.
The first scene in the upscale hotel is impressive, especially the front desk set and a very clever transitional elevator scene. The musical cues (California Dreaming, Wouldn’t it be Nice, etc.) are suggestive and add to the mood without being intrusive. Ben continues his affair with Mrs. Robinson and wants the relationship to be deeper. However, after an awkward conversation, he finds that maybe sex and aimlessness is all they have in common. That and her daughter Elaine.
The first half ends.
After a 20 minute or so intermission, the play resumes. While the first half of the play belongs to Amanda Donohoe, the second centers on Coral Beed (Elaine Robinson, Mrs. Robinson’s daughter). Eventually, Ben becomes infatuated and falls in love with Elaine over Mrs. Robinson’s objections. Elaine struggles to work out her feelings for Ben in the face of a marriage proposal from another man and the revelation of Ben’s affair with her mother. It all blows up in a funny climactic scene during Elaine’s church wedding and the two run off together. The play extends the arc of a story a bit behind the final scene in the movie. The movie ends with Ben and Elaine awkwardly sitting next to each other on a bus, not sure of what to say or what lies ahead. The great ambiguous, confused, slightly scared looks on the actors’ faces is magic. In the play, this scene is deleted and instead there is a brief epilogue where Ben and Elaine start working out their relationship and potential life together. It loses a bit of momentum and I’m not sure it works.
At the end of the performance, the actors come out and take bows. Amanda shuffles on spiked heels, everyone moving up a couple inches to find the mark and bow. She bows and comes back up, a huge smile on her face. The actors come back out, she bows again, beaming, GIGANTIC smile, megawatt charm. I’m convinced she has the all time greatest smile. She swivels on her shapely legs, turns her back to the audience, raises her arms and the rest of the cast take their final bows. She turns around and beams again. She looks pleased, she should be.
It’s almost 10:30, so my wife and I head back to the exit to wait for Ms. Donohoe. I don’t know whether to expect a huge line or nobody. There are two thirtyish guys hanging around, already in line, I wonder if they saw the show. The door is open and a doorman is there. A big black car is waiting.
My wife and I get in line and a few minutes later an older man gets in line behind us. As we wait, people start coming out. I don’t recognize them until the stripper (Lourdes Faberes) comes out. I think, "What’s keeping her?" then I realize she has to change, get her things in order, etc. and that this has to take at least 30 minutes. So, we wait patiently, although the guy behind me looks like he’s about to have a nervous fit. I found out long ago that the surest way to get what you want is to be ready to accept the fact that you may never get it. Once you get past that fact and are ready to let it go, things usually work out. I know if I don’t meet Ms. Donohoe, there will likely be other chances.
It’s almost 11 p.m. and bars are starting to close. I look into the bar across the street and watch two men kissing as people filter out on the streets. Suddenly, Coral and Andres come out of the theatre and immediately enter the car. I’m a bit disappointed because I wanted to tell them how much I enjoyed their performances and get them to sign the program for the show. But now that they are in the car, I don’t want to bother them. They sit down and we continue to wait. After a couple minutes, I look in the car and see Coral looking out at the line. I catch her eye and smile; she smiles back, very pretty and charming.
Finally, Amanda Donohoe comes out and things blur. My first impression is how tall, thin and hip she looks – she has cool sunglasses on, black coat with fur trim. She’s almost as tall as I (5' 10") am but she’s in heels, so deduct a bit. Her hair is down and fairly long. My mind is still processing the fact that it’s her, in the flesh. The coach motor starts up and for a second I think she’s just going to go in the car and leave. The guys in front of me hold out pictures and signature cards for her to sign, the sure sign of professional autograph collectors. One of them asks how she is and she laughs and says, "I’m knackered." They both have the 8 x 10 publicity photo for "Game, Set and Match." She groans/laughs and says nicely, "I hate that picture! I’m trying to get them to stop selling it. I’ve got some beautiful new ones coming out." I say, "That’s the publicity photo for Game Set & Match, right?" She says, "Yes." The guy behind me, not knowing the concept of a line, pushes forward and offers her the same picture. She says, "That was taken ages ago" (for the record, it is circa. 1987. Although her face isn’t much different, I expect she just objects to the hairstyle and the fact that it’s almost a decade and a half old).
I tell her I have one a bit newer and hold out the poster that was published with the March 1998 issue of Maxim (UK).
She says, "That’s another picture that’s from a while ago, where did you get it?" I tell her it was part of Maxim about three years ago. It’s a list of the top 10 British babes. I say, "Look at the competition" as she laughs delightedly and shows the photo to Coral and Andres. Coral says, "Oooh" appreciatively, laughing. Amanda flips through the competition (#1 is Denise van Outen). She looks at the photo of Emma Noble and shows it to Coral, "Look!" Jenny Powell, "Look!" laughing heartily. "Then there’s little old me! "
She seems genuinely pleased and amused. I ask her to sign it "To Jon, no h" and she takes the pen and starts writing across her lovely thigh, but she writes "to john", pauses and grimaces a bit, "Oh no", as she gets to the h and n. I laugh, "That’s ok." Then I say, "I actually have something for YOU. " She says, "Oh really?" I say, "Yes, I’m the guy from America doing your website." Immediately I hear my wife behind me, "Oh, that’s not a good way of putting it – DOING your website".
Amanda is signing other things and says, "Oh YOU’RE the guy!" I hand her some pages and say, "There are a lot of holes in it, do you have a publicity person that I could talk to? She says, "Yes- well, you’re going to do it whether I like it or not (smiles and grabs my arm gently), so we may as well collaborate (paraphrase, I don’t remember exactly, Amanda Donohoe is grabbing my arm for gosh sakes)." I ask her whether she’s seen it or not and she says, "No, I haven’t, I’m not very technical." I say, "Well you can go to Tower Records in Piccadilly (a short walk away) and for 1 pound you can go online for 20 minutes." (Later when I’m on the tube back to the Hotel I will realize how absurd this sounds. I laugh at the image of Amanda Donohoe, star of stage and screen, in Tower records surrounded by poor punters checking their emails and sending "How are yers" to their mums while she looks at pictures of herself on the Net. Yeah, right). She says, "Daddy has a computer, I’ll have him check it out." All of a sudden, I feel like a teenager again, under the microscope from a prospective date’s father.
She says, "We should chat" and looks at some of the pages. She looks at the Filmography page and says, "Oh, get rid of that picture! (the one from "Game, Set and Match")" I say, " It’s gone! I’m going to replace it with the photo from the program, it’s great." She says, "It is, isn’t it?" She tells another guy, "Just send a self addressed envelope in care of the theatre and you’ll get a new photo signed by me." I ask her if she’ll take a picture with me and she says, "Sure." My wife snaps the picture and I say take a few more (because you never know if your eyes are closed, etc. and I may never get this chance again). Amanda says, "[Take another] the flash didn’t go off." I’m too shocked to think I actually have my arm around Amanda Donohoe. She is light as a bird and almost as tall as me.
I say thanks again, introduce my wife, they shake hands and we get ready to go. I bend down slightly, look into the car and say, "Great show!" to Coral and Andres. They smile and say thanks. We turn to go. I have a huge smile on my face. Amanda says, "We’ll be in touch." I say, "Great, just not your solicitors I hope." She laughs and my wife and I leave. There are some kids and other folks hanging around still. I’m a bit stunned by it all. The entire exchange from the time she exited the theatre to the time we left couldn’t have taken more than 3 minutes, but it felt like a half hour. I would have loved to have more time to talk, but she is tired and the other actors are waiting and I don’t want to bother her. This was more than enough to make me extremely happy.
I go away with the impression of a really lovely, funny, very nice, generous woman.
And I’m the happiest boy in town.