Mandy Patinkin almost turned down an audition that would change the trajectory of his career.
It was 1979, and the actor was in the midst of rehearsals for an off-Broadway production when his agent called and told him to head to the Shubert Theatre to audition for a new musical.
“I can’t go to that because I’m in rehearsal,” Patinkin recalled telling his agent. “It’s a five-character play. I can’t leave.”
An argument ensued. But, finally, Patinkin relented. He received permission from his director to take some time off from rehearsals. Then, still dressed in a Mickey Mouse hoodie, he begrudgingly left for this audition.
He nailed it (though the casting director wasn’t too fond of his attire) and was asked to return the next day for a callback. Then, the day after that, Patinkin received a call from his agent. He had booked the role of Che Guevara in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Evita,” which opened in the fall of 1979.
The experience was life-changing. Patinkin earned a Tony Award for best supporting actor for his performance and, at only 27, become one of Broadway’s biggest stars. He went on to land a variety of roles in both musicals and straight plays before primarily transitioning to film and television by the mid-2000s.
But now, the “Homeland” and “Criminal Minds” actor is returning to the stage for his new solo concert “Being Alive,” currently on tour and set to play Toronto’s Massey Hall on March 27. The program, with his close collaborator Adam Ben-David on the piano, features a collection of classic Broadway and American tunes, from composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim.
The show’s title is significant, borrowed from a Sondheim song of the same name, the 11-o’clock number from the musical “Company.”
But Patinkin admits he wasn’t even thinking of the Sondheim song when he was brainstorming names for this concert, as theatres were reopening following the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.
“I just wanted to feel alive again. I wanted the audience to feel like we’re all being alive again,” said Patinkin, speaking from his home in New York City. “Then Adam said, ‘Why don’t we call it that?’ And I said, ‘Call it what? He said, ‘Being Alive.’”
Patinkin and Sondheim, the late American composer, had a close working partnership. Three years after “Evita,” the actor starred as the title character in Sondheim’s new musical “Sunday in the Park With George,” inspired by the French pointillist painter George Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”
It was a completely different experience from working on “Evita.” Whereas Patinkin was stepping into that production after it was already an established hit in London’s West End, with “Sunday” he was originating a new role and helping to usher the musical through its development.
What he enjoyed most, said Patinkin, was the artistic process. When the musical premiered off-Broadway, Sondheim and his collaborator James Lapine didn’t have a complete second act.
Even after the show transferred to Broadway, it was unfinished throughout most of previews. “People were leaving in droves at the end of the first act because, as a company, we didn’t have it together,” recalled Patinkin. “We didn’t have an ending.
“We were so demoralized, with the wind in our face,” he added. “And I remember Steve sat on the couch in my dressing room after one preview, and I just held his shoulders with my two hands. I gave it a little gentle shake, like a rattle, and I said, ‘Just write up anything, anything, even if it’s a piece of s—t.’
“He closed his eyes, he scrunched his face like he does and he shook his head. ‘I know, I know, I know. I will, I will, I will.’”
Lo and behold, Sondheim, the genius procrastinator that he was, came through several days later, the night before New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich was scheduled to review the production. Sondheim had finally written the two songs that would tie up the piece: “Children and Art” and “Lesson #8.”
“The show was absolutely on fire from that point on,” Patinkin said. Rich wrote a rave review and became one of its biggest champions. Later, “Sunday” went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, one of only 10 musicals in history to receive that honour.
Patinkin, a deeply introspective yet animated storyteller, doesn’t ever see himself on Broadway again. (“I don’t want to do eight shows a week,” he said.)
But he keeps returning to the stage through his solo shows because of his love for the medium. “The place that feels like home is the live concert venue,” Patinkin said. “The reservoir of material is endless and you can always find something to speak about. But most of all, it’s immediate. I’m with the audience, so (the performance) reflects that moment of that day.”
There’s an understated, humble warmth to Patinkin. That’s apparent when he’s performing, but also in how he approaches his work, too, always with the utmost reverence for the material.
“I’m not the geniuses who wrote these songs that you want to hear over and over again,” he explained. “I’m just the mailman. I just deliver the mail.”
