Actor John Warren couldn't resist 'Is He Dead?' at Kavinoky
The chance to star in a recently unearthed play by Mark Twain doesn’t come around too often. So when offered the opportunity to take a crack at Twain’s long-buried, nigh farcical comedy “Is He Dead?”, New York Citybased actor and frequent Buffalo stage presence JOHN WARREN just couldn’t say no.
Warren plays a gifted but unsuccessful artist who fakes his own death and dons a feminine disguise in hopes that the ruse will increase the value of his paintings. The play opens next Friday in Kavinoky Theatre (320 Porter Ave.); for more information, visit www.kavinokytheatre.com or call 829-7668. Warren spoke to The News about Twain’s dramatic work, the expectations that come with the show and the trials of performing in 19th century drag.
Mark Twain isn’t exactly known as a playwright, so how does this play measure up to his literary successes?
It has a lot of the dry wit that’s in a lot of his writing. There’s certainly a bit of a farcical aspect to it. This is an adaptation of his play, his original work, so a lot of things have changed from the original piece. Overall, it’s definitely got the humor of Twain.
It’s not exactly “Huck Finn,” though.
Not exactly, but there are a lot of characters that are parallel between the two. Not major characters, but there’s two women in the show, two of the older women in the show, who kind of parallel the aunts in Huck Finn. Little things like that, that you just kind of spark on as you’re going through the script.
“Is He Dead?” was recently on Broadway and starred Norbert Leo Butz in the lead role. Is there a heightened expectation there, a heightened pressure for you coming off of that?
Not really. Not for me at least. I just kind of go into everything that I’ve done and that I’m doing now with the same mind-set. You just want it to be the best it possibly can be, and you want to put your own twist on it. You don’t want to copy what other actors have done with the role, but you have to adhere to certain limitations of the script. It’s kind of exciting that this is one of the first times it will be done outside of [Broadway]. But I don’t really put any heightened expectations on myself. No more than I usually would.
Have you had experience playing women before, or is this a new thing?
Just mainly at home. [Laughs.] No, I’m trying to think if I’ve ever done drag before. I feel like I have in something, but not to this extent. It’s interesting, because it’s all period clothes, so just moving around in the clothes is going to be a little bit difficult. I’m kind of looking forward to it, to be quite frank. It just seems like it’ll be a blast. I’m touching on my feminine side, which I’m not afraid of.
