Answering the bell
By Jack Zink
May 13, 2001
NEW YORK -- This spring's revival of Bells Are Ringing has been treated as Faith Prince's induction to the society of Broadway musical-comedy divas. Unremarked in the media hype, but noticed throughout New York's theater district, is the certification of her co-star, Marc Kudisch, as a leading man.
Prince has been a bona fide leading lady since 1992, when she won the best-actress Tony Award as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls. She was previously nominated as featured actress in Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989, the year that Kudisch graduated from Florida Atlantic University and moved to New York.
During the next 12 years, Kudisch worked his way steadily up the Broadway ladder, seldom with the help of critics. Though intense and opinionated about his work and career, he now seems nonplussed about having his name in lights two stories above his dressing room.
"Naw, I'm not into self-promotion," he says, allowing a rare silence to build, rubbing the 5 o'clock shadow on his chin (New York Times critic Ben Brantley called him "square-jawed" in his Bells Are Ringing review). He'll shave in a few minutes, just before getting into costume for the night's performance.
Choosing his words with uncharacteristic slowness, Kudisch says he's flattered by the recognition and attention, but doesn't want to chase it.
"I don't want to have an 'official' Web site of my own," he says of his devoted Internet fan club [Freaky: "devoted Internet fan club", eh? ;o) ]. "Self-promotion wigs me out, like that," he says, pointing through the ceiling to the marquee above the Plymouth Theatre.
"Part of it is neat because you always talk about having your name in lights, and above the title. When it happens it's a very out-of-body experience; there's something odd about it."
Kudisch's New York credits began with the interactive off-Broadway show Tamara, along with a stint as a member of the Village Gate's improv comedy troupe.
His break occurred in '91, when he landed the title role in the touring revival of Bye Bye, Birdie, including two weeks at the Broward Center. (Prince, his future co-star, was doing her Tony-winning stuff in Guys and Dolls with Nathan Lane then.)
A succession of character roles followed over the next decade, starting with Kudisch's Broadway debut as Reuben, a small showcase turn, in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He stepped into Disney's already-running Beauty and the Beast as Gaston, the flamboyant bad guy, and as Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel, originated by Terrence Mann.
Kudisch's first original featured role was as George Kittredge in High Society, but he scored with far more impact as the evil Jackie in last season's The Wild Party.
The actor's success in character roles is a bit unexpected, given his conventional good looks.
"Although I look like Mr. Charming Leading Man, I'm a character actor," Kudisch concedes. "When I left Florida, people said to me, `You'll never play these roles in the real world,' but that's all I've done.
"This is the first time I've ever played a leading-man role, but I find him unique because he's a character to me, and I've always played character roles."
During rehearsals, the producers expected both Prince and Kudisch to share New York critics' accolades. Kudisch says he told them not to plan on it.
"I told them no, nononono. I'm very specific with the work I do. I'm not concerned with what people think of me," he says. And indeed, Prince earned raves last month, while critics were dismissive about Kudisch and the show itself, considering it dated material. Kudisch theorizes it's because the revival has cut out a lot of the expected shtick that was in style in 1956, replacing it with a modern, realistic sensibility.
"Either people really like it because it's more in depth than you normally expect, or they get confused," he says.
As for his own lukewarm notices, "I've been reviewed on Broadway five times, and each time I've been someone entirely different. That's a dilemma for people who are looking for a personality named Marc Kudisch up there onstage."
Unlike most musical comedy stars, who thrive on their own personalities, Kudisch says that what keeps him going is the battle of redefining himself as an actor.
"I've had the good fortune of constantly being able to do that. More than likely, I'll go from this into Thoroughly Modern Millie" -- Kudisch played in the show's pre-Broadway tryout last fall at California's La Jolla Playhouse -- "which is another completely different role and different style. I will either impress or confuse yet again."
The irony in his rise through the Broadway musical scene is that he didn't start out to be an actor. When he later became one, he had no idea of becoming a singer.
"From my first musical, as Birdie" -- a character inspired by Elvis Presley -- "I got the role because of the way I acted. I really couldn't sing back then -- I have pitch and could carry a tune, but I didn't know how to sing and I was losing my voice at the end of every week."
Kudisch, who grew up in Plantation, enrolled at FAU in political science but soon switched to theater. The university had a respected graduate theater program but was just beginning to design an undergraduate degree.
He was placed in some graduate courses and found himself being cast regularly in featured roles in campus productions, alongside the upperclassmen.
"I did so much work while I was there," he says, "that I think I had a head start."
Another big plus was moving off campus to professional regional theater in his final years. He appeared in The Woolgatherer at a small Broward County dinner theater, a comedy called Helluva Town at the old Off Broadway Theatre in Wilton Manors, and A.R. Gurney's Another Antigone at the Caldwell Theatre Company.
After reprising his Birdie rock-star role for the 1995 TV version, Kudisch started taking music lessons, and by the late '90s he had become a capable balladeer. Last season's The Wild Party fused his singing to his dramatic abilities.
Yet Bells Are Ringing marks the real unveiling of Kudisch's vocal instrument, a smooth and varicolored baritone that fits snugly alongside Prince's girlish but velvety soprano for the standards Just in Time and Long Before I Knew You.
"She's an actress! That's what's great about Faith," Kudisch says. "She's a damn fine singer and she's a craftsman, but a much better actress than people give her credit for.
"Everybody thinks that because of Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, that's all she does. They forget she's done a lot of other wonderful stuff. But she won the Tony for Adelaide, so that's what people have in their minds."
Offstage, they've become fast friends. On stage, Prince and Kudisch are the daffy couple written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and first portrayed by Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin in 1956. She's a telephone answering service operator who lives through the people she hears on the phone; "he's a snob from the Upper East Side who has been given, in a week's span, a whole new outlook on life because of this woman," Kudisch says.
"She's not perfect. He's not perfect. Together, they're perfect for each other."
Jack Zink can be reached at jzink@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4706.