Old Stars Shine As Villains in 'Chitty'

Marc Kudisch and Jan Maxwell certainly seem to be in touch with reality.

As the duo dug in to a pre-performance meal of pasta pomodoro and chicken at a restaurant near Times Square, the talk turned to the rising cost of producing theater in New York and the knee problems each was experiencing.

There was no indication by either, especially Maxwell, of an irrational dislike of children, and both managed to get through dinner without accidentally shooting the waiter. In other words, the two were nothing like their characters in the Broadway musical "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

As Baron and Baroness Bomburst, Kudisch and Maxwell have been terrorizing the citizens of Vulgaria with their dictatorial ways while delighting audiences with their comic timing and delivery.

"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is a hugely expensive production in which a flying car is the ultimate crowd pleaser, but pay close attention to the audience's reaction when the villains are on stage. You may notice that Kudisch and Maxwell get the biggest laughs, many of the laughs coming from gags they've created together, independent of the script.

"What Jan and Marc are doing ... it's just extraordinary," said Frederick Zollo, one of the show's producers. "They've been magical since the first day of rehearsal."

"Chitty" came to Broadway after first being a huge success in London, where it opened in 2002. However, both Kudisch and Maxwell say, the humor in that show — particularly the laughs generated by the Baron and Baroness — struck them as slightly off. So they consulted with director Adrian Noble, who also directed the London version, and were given carte blanche to create their characters in a way they saw fit.

"We noticed there was a little bit of a difference between British humor and American humor," Maxwell said. "So we tried to steer everything to our sense of humor rather than theirs."

Inspiration came from various sources. For Maxwell, she thought of games she plays at home with her 9-year-old son. As a result, she and Kudisch now play patty-cake during the performance of "Chu-Chi Face," the duo's first singing number.

For Kudisch, a tall, hulking man with a face that can look fierce thanks to his bald head and black goatee, the key was getting in touch with his childlike side. For much of the time he is on stage, he bounces around like an overgrown kid, whining for toys he wants and pouting when things don't go his way.

"I think kids laugh at me at times because they recognize their own similar behavior, but it's the adults that know what it really is," Kudisch said. "Every wife is probably looking up there going, "That's my husband.'"

The Baron and Baroness both seem a tad immature to be ruling a country. Besides the Baron's temper tantrums, the Baroness is afraid of children, to the point that they employ the evil Childcatcher to round up any that slip into Vulgaria.

Maxwell also decided to play the Baroness as if she were slightly "medicated," a decision that has made her seem almost like a boozy beer-hall singer with no real sense of reality. In one inspired addition to the script, suggested by Maxwell, the Baroness accidentally shoots one of her subjects while she is cleaning a gun, punctuating the moment with a droll "whoopsy daisy."

"We know we're playing 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' but we did talk about different heads of state and how there's no conscience there and no value for life and there's this entitlement," Maxwell said. "That kind of stuff, if you take it into some quirky, childlike imagination, it can be a lot of fun."

And it's been well-received. Besides the laughs every night, Kudisch and Maxwell were each nominated for Drama Desk and Tony Awards, with Maxwell winning the Drama Desk prize.

"They're out there at their peak power," Zollo said. "It's sort of a valedictory performance for the two of them."

One of the main obstacles for Maxwell, however, was the fact that the play is a musical. A veteran of New York theater, Maxwell experience was in straight plays. But she knew the part of the Baroness was too good to pass up. So she came up with a novel idea of how to get around her inexperience with singing on stage.

"I just can't stand to listen to myself," said Maxwell, who, with her long red hair and orange button-down shirt, looks nothing like the heavily made-up Baroness, who sports blond hair done in a style reminiscent of Princess Leia in "Star Wars."

"So I thought I'll solve that by singing badly, dancing badly, acting badly and then I'm free," Maxwell said.

It was yet another individual touch that paid off. Maxwell's idiosyncratic delivery, somewhere between an off-key warble and a dying wail, is consistently amusing and able to delight the kids in the audience as well as their parents.

One advantage Kudisch and Maxwell have over their fellow cast members is that they only make one brief appearance in the first act. As a result, their characters don't get caught up in any of the play's exposition and the audience is fully aware of who and what the Baron and Baroness are when they make their official entry in the second act.

That first act break also gives Kudisch and Maxwell some much needed time off, whether to ice those aforementioned knees or catch up on e-mail. Kudisch sometimes likes to do yoga, while Maxwell, with a laugh, said she often relaxes just by staring at the wall for nearly 45 minutes.

But once they're on the stage, it's back to business as usual. Of course, none of what Kudisch and Maxwell have come up with would work without chemistry between the two. Luckily for them — and the show — they have it. It's apparent even over dinner, where they chuckle at comments made by one another, disagree good-naturedly about different statements each makes and consistently defer to the other when discussing how they brought these characters to life.

It's clear they're having a great time and they have the good sense to bring the audience along with them.

"It's joyful," Kudisch said. "There's no question of that."