INTERMISSION 15 minutes with ...
Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason began her career as a stage actress (see credits at right). Yet, she is best
remembered for her film career which earned four Academy Award nominations between
1973 and 1981. Those were also the years of her marriage to one of the century's most
successful playwrights, Neil Simon, who wrote three of those films. In May 2007, she
will return to the stage for a week at the Skirball Cultural Center as the lead in Charles
Busch's 'The Tale of the Allergist's Wife.' We spoke by telephone earlier this year.
(Her film bio from All Movie Guide is reprinted following the interview.)
Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason began her career as a stage actress (see credits at right). Yet, she is best
remembered for her film career which earned four Academy Award nominations between
1973 and 1981. Those were also the years of her marriage to one of the century's most
successful playwrights, Neil Simon, who wrote three of those films. In May 2007, she
will return to the stage for a week at the Skirball Cultural Center as the lead in Charles
Busch's 'The Tale of the Allergist's Wife.' We spoke by telephone earlier this year.
(Her film bio from All Movie Guide is reprinted following the interview.)
[The call to Marsha Mason is intercepted by a security system that asks a name be stated. As soon as
the name is spoken a familiar voice is on the line.]
MARSHA MASON: Good morning?
CRIS GROSS: Good morning?
MARSHA MASON: Good morning, Cris. I’m sorry. I thought I'd set the call intercept.
CRIS GROSS: Well, I’m not calling from the number I said I would. So it might just be grouchy. I don't
know what my folks had on this phone.
MARSHA MASON [laughing]
CRIS GROSS: Yeah. So I’m talking to you from the empty house that I grew up in.
MARSHA MASON: Oh wow. Does it bring back memories?
CRIS GROSS: It’s interesting . . . Just to get off the subject before we get on it . . . To this day dreams
take place in this house or a building that somehow has this floorplan.
MARSHA MASON: [genuinely intrigued] Real-ly?
CRIS GROSS: Someone else said she had the same thing happen with her family home.
MARSHA MASON: Huh! I’ve never had that happen.
CRIS GROSS: No? Did you have a place you lived in for a long time as a kid?
MARSHA MASON: Yeah. Yeah. But all my dreams took place in strange places. [Starting to laugh]
Isn’t that weird?
CRIS GROSS: Maybe we should talk about it.
MARSHA MASON: [laugh.]
CRIS GROSS: Now you’re going to do Allergist’s Wife with LA TheatreWorks in May, playing Marjorie.
MARSHA MASON: Linda Lavin’s role.
CRIS GROSS: In a review of Lavin, the critic loved her “pulling out all the stops,” and talks specifically
about expressions, double takes, etc. Those are all tricks that a radio audience won't get. How do you
satisfy both worlds of live audience in front of you and radio audience down the road?.
MARSHA MASON: Well, doing it in front of a live audience helps enormously. You play to the house,
but you are fully aware of the fact that you’re doing it for radio. So you don’t step on other people’s
lines, which you might tend to do if you were just doing it for the house. And of course we go back
and if we have made some glitches, or something like that, we go back and do pick ups. We take the
best from all of it.
CRIS GROSS What appeals to you about 'Allergist's Wife?' Charles Busch is pretty over the top stuff,
right?
MARSHA MASON: Yeah. What appealed to me when I saw the play was the underpinnings of it. The
emotional conflicts that the character was going through. What was causing her to be so funny was
this enormous pain. You know? And I thought that it was really interesting. And it’s always
fascinated me about that because sometimes I go and see a show, I remember when I saw Sisters
Rosensweig, I thought that it was played more obviously for its humor, but I really thought it was very
Chekhovian underneath. And, granted Chekhov can be funny, but it’s rooted in the human dilemma, the
human element. The emotional conflict of the character. The pain. It’s rooted in the pain. That’s what
intrigued me about it. And there just aren’t that may parts out there for women my age that are
challenging and interesting.
CRIS GROSS Well that brings up what would seem a nice thing about radio, I assume, is that . . . I
mean you still sound like the Goodbye Girl to me, I mean . . . .
MARSHA MASON [laugh] Right . . .
CRIS GROSS I mean, you’ve got a bigger age window . . . . .
MARSHA MASON Yes. Exactly. But Susan can’t move too far away in a remarkable way because
we do it in front of a live audience. I think one of the best stories I ever heard about that was when
Peter Hall came to Judi Dench to do Caesar and Cleopatra with Tony Hopkins, which I happened to see,
and she said, ‘You want a menopausal 40-year-old dwarf to play Cleopatra?’ It was so funny. And it
was true, it wouldn’t be your normal casting decision. But she was just breath-taking.
CRIS GROSS: And she was able to get away with it.
MARSHA MASON: Yep yep yep. She was just so good. She was so good.
CRIS GROSS: Do you find that as you go it’s like any other run, that you get better with each
performance or is any show capable of being right on the mark.
MARSHA MASON: I think any one of them can really hit the mark because in a strange way, the
audience is educated as to the sound effects and everything. It really comes across in a comedy.
When Richard [Dreyfus] and I recorded 'Prisoner of Second Avenue' we were nominated for a Grammy
Award. It was strange to be in the comedy category with George Carlin and the stand-up guys. But it
shows that it came across very funny.
CRIS GROSS: You mention Richard and I have also recently talked with Hector Elizondo and Ed Asner
about this same subject. You are all part of this extended theater company of the air.
MARSHA MASON: Yes, we started out a company.
CRIS GROSS: You were a founding member.
MARSHA MASON: Yes. And we kind of run in the same very loose, wide galaxy. I mean, Ed Asner
was in New Mexico doing a short story festival for me last year. And Hector has been there [at LATW]
a long time. You tend to call on the people that you know, I guess. And we love doing the plays. We
love that venue, in particular, though we’ve done them in lots of different venues, actually. I’ve done it
in Chicago and in London over the years. We did some for the BBC. We did one at the Smithsonian in
Washington DC. We were in a hotel for a few years in Santa Monica before the Skirball. And I just
love the, what do you call it? The environment. Or the experience. The context of it. To do a radio
show in front of an audience is just wonderful.
CRIS GROSS: How is it works so well and continues to attract such talent and keep growing?
MARSHA MASON: Well, I think to a great extent because of Susan[Loewenberg, the producer]. She’s
put this kind of work on the map and she works tirelessly to establish it and get the plays out there.
Some people just won’t be interested much. And she’s moving forward with the whole digital situation,
putting a lot of the catalogue on CD. I just think it’s wonderful.
CRIS GROSS It's great to have these plays accessible now and have some favorite actors doing
them. It's nice to have you and Richard together in 'Second Avenue' for all time. Speaking of
catalogues, I just stumbled upon 'The Cheap Detective' the other night and figured I'd see how much I
could take. I was laughing out loud in no time. It's much funnier than I had remembered.
MARSHA MASON [laughter]
CRIS GROSS: So when I saw I had the opportunity to talk to you I had to bring this up because it was
really funny.
MARSHA MASON I know. It’s really good. It is good.
CRIS GROSS Much better, I think, than it’s legacy if you will.
MARSHA MASON It doesn’t get shown very much. It’s so strange. But it’s just one of those things.
There were a couple movies like that that the studios didn’t really back strongly or there were regime
changes at the very moment that it was released. That happened to 'Max Dugan Returns.' And, then
fortunately because of cable, we gained a whole other audience. You know what I mean. And
suddenly people were seeing the value of it.
If anyone needs reminding how good Mason is, rent 'Cinderella Liberty' with James
Caan, or, of course, 'The Goodbye Girl' with Richard Dreyfus. You may even want to take
a shot at the crazy 'Cheap Detective.' For tickets to see her record 'The Tale of the
Allergist's Wife,' visit the L.A. Theatre Works website.
Marsha Mason also appeared on television in such series as Dr. Kildare. She had her
first substantial film role in Hot Rod Hulaballoo (1966). Her first big break came after
she traveled to San Francisco to appear in an American Conservatory Theater
production of Private Lives directed by Francis Ford Coppola. While on the West
Coast she played a supporting role in Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love (1973). It was
her stage work, however, that led filmmaker Mark Rydell to cast her as a pregnant
single mother who prostitutes herself in Seattle in Cinderella Liberty (1973). She beat
out Barbra Streisand, the studio's choice, for the role and won her first Academy Award
nomination. Her second nomination came from her portrayal of a divorced chorine
trying to support herself and her daughter while dealing with a series of failed
romances in Simon's comedy-drama The Goodbye Girl (1977). She and Simon were
married at the time and the famed playwright wrote the part especially for her. Mason's
co-star, Richard Dreyfuss, won a Best Actor Oscar. Simon wrote the screenplay for the
film responsible for Mason's third Oscar nomination, Chapter Two (1979), which was
an autobiographical account of their courtship. He also penned the part that landed her
a fourth nomination, Only When I Laugh (1981). Through the '80s, Mason seemed to
concentrate more on television movies, such as Love Canal (1982) and Surviving
(1985), and her feature-film appearances became sporadic. In 1991, she starred in the
short-lived sitcom Sibs. In 1997, Mason became a semi-regular on the popular NBC
sitcom Frasier, playing the love interest of Kelsey Grammar's father, John Mahoney.
the name is spoken a familiar voice is on the line.]
MARSHA MASON: Good morning?
CRIS GROSS: Good morning?
MARSHA MASON: Good morning, Cris. I’m sorry. I thought I'd set the call intercept.
CRIS GROSS: Well, I’m not calling from the number I said I would. So it might just be grouchy. I don't
know what my folks had on this phone.
MARSHA MASON [laughing]
CRIS GROSS: Yeah. So I’m talking to you from the empty house that I grew up in.
MARSHA MASON: Oh wow. Does it bring back memories?
CRIS GROSS: It’s interesting . . . Just to get off the subject before we get on it . . . To this day dreams
take place in this house or a building that somehow has this floorplan.
MARSHA MASON: [genuinely intrigued] Real-ly?
CRIS GROSS: Someone else said she had the same thing happen with her family home.
MARSHA MASON: Huh! I’ve never had that happen.
CRIS GROSS: No? Did you have a place you lived in for a long time as a kid?
MARSHA MASON: Yeah. Yeah. But all my dreams took place in strange places. [Starting to laugh]
Isn’t that weird?
CRIS GROSS: Maybe we should talk about it.
MARSHA MASON: [laugh.]
CRIS GROSS: Now you’re going to do Allergist’s Wife with LA TheatreWorks in May, playing Marjorie.
MARSHA MASON: Linda Lavin’s role.
CRIS GROSS: In a review of Lavin, the critic loved her “pulling out all the stops,” and talks specifically
about expressions, double takes, etc. Those are all tricks that a radio audience won't get. How do you
satisfy both worlds of live audience in front of you and radio audience down the road?.
MARSHA MASON: Well, doing it in front of a live audience helps enormously. You play to the house,
but you are fully aware of the fact that you’re doing it for radio. So you don’t step on other people’s
lines, which you might tend to do if you were just doing it for the house. And of course we go back
and if we have made some glitches, or something like that, we go back and do pick ups. We take the
best from all of it.
CRIS GROSS What appeals to you about 'Allergist's Wife?' Charles Busch is pretty over the top stuff,
right?
MARSHA MASON: Yeah. What appealed to me when I saw the play was the underpinnings of it. The
emotional conflicts that the character was going through. What was causing her to be so funny was
this enormous pain. You know? And I thought that it was really interesting. And it’s always
fascinated me about that because sometimes I go and see a show, I remember when I saw Sisters
Rosensweig, I thought that it was played more obviously for its humor, but I really thought it was very
Chekhovian underneath. And, granted Chekhov can be funny, but it’s rooted in the human dilemma, the
human element. The emotional conflict of the character. The pain. It’s rooted in the pain. That’s what
intrigued me about it. And there just aren’t that may parts out there for women my age that are
challenging and interesting.
CRIS GROSS Well that brings up what would seem a nice thing about radio, I assume, is that . . . I
mean you still sound like the Goodbye Girl to me, I mean . . . .
MARSHA MASON [laugh] Right . . .
CRIS GROSS I mean, you’ve got a bigger age window . . . . .
MARSHA MASON Yes. Exactly. But Susan can’t move too far away in a remarkable way because
we do it in front of a live audience. I think one of the best stories I ever heard about that was when
Peter Hall came to Judi Dench to do Caesar and Cleopatra with Tony Hopkins, which I happened to see,
and she said, ‘You want a menopausal 40-year-old dwarf to play Cleopatra?’ It was so funny. And it
was true, it wouldn’t be your normal casting decision. But she was just breath-taking.
CRIS GROSS: And she was able to get away with it.
MARSHA MASON: Yep yep yep. She was just so good. She was so good.
CRIS GROSS: Do you find that as you go it’s like any other run, that you get better with each
performance or is any show capable of being right on the mark.
MARSHA MASON: I think any one of them can really hit the mark because in a strange way, the
audience is educated as to the sound effects and everything. It really comes across in a comedy.
When Richard [Dreyfus] and I recorded 'Prisoner of Second Avenue' we were nominated for a Grammy
Award. It was strange to be in the comedy category with George Carlin and the stand-up guys. But it
shows that it came across very funny.
CRIS GROSS: You mention Richard and I have also recently talked with Hector Elizondo and Ed Asner
about this same subject. You are all part of this extended theater company of the air.
MARSHA MASON: Yes, we started out a company.
CRIS GROSS: You were a founding member.
MARSHA MASON: Yes. And we kind of run in the same very loose, wide galaxy. I mean, Ed Asner
was in New Mexico doing a short story festival for me last year. And Hector has been there [at LATW]
a long time. You tend to call on the people that you know, I guess. And we love doing the plays. We
love that venue, in particular, though we’ve done them in lots of different venues, actually. I’ve done it
in Chicago and in London over the years. We did some for the BBC. We did one at the Smithsonian in
Washington DC. We were in a hotel for a few years in Santa Monica before the Skirball. And I just
love the, what do you call it? The environment. Or the experience. The context of it. To do a radio
show in front of an audience is just wonderful.
CRIS GROSS: How is it works so well and continues to attract such talent and keep growing?
MARSHA MASON: Well, I think to a great extent because of Susan[Loewenberg, the producer]. She’s
put this kind of work on the map and she works tirelessly to establish it and get the plays out there.
Some people just won’t be interested much. And she’s moving forward with the whole digital situation,
putting a lot of the catalogue on CD. I just think it’s wonderful.
CRIS GROSS It's great to have these plays accessible now and have some favorite actors doing
them. It's nice to have you and Richard together in 'Second Avenue' for all time. Speaking of
catalogues, I just stumbled upon 'The Cheap Detective' the other night and figured I'd see how much I
could take. I was laughing out loud in no time. It's much funnier than I had remembered.
MARSHA MASON [laughter]
CRIS GROSS: So when I saw I had the opportunity to talk to you I had to bring this up because it was
really funny.
MARSHA MASON I know. It’s really good. It is good.
CRIS GROSS Much better, I think, than it’s legacy if you will.
MARSHA MASON It doesn’t get shown very much. It’s so strange. But it’s just one of those things.
There were a couple movies like that that the studios didn’t really back strongly or there were regime
changes at the very moment that it was released. That happened to 'Max Dugan Returns.' And, then
fortunately because of cable, we gained a whole other audience. You know what I mean. And
suddenly people were seeing the value of it.
If anyone needs reminding how good Mason is, rent 'Cinderella Liberty' with James
Caan, or, of course, 'The Goodbye Girl' with Richard Dreyfus. You may even want to take
a shot at the crazy 'Cheap Detective.' For tickets to see her record 'The Tale of the
Allergist's Wife,' visit the L.A. Theatre Works website.
Marsha Mason also appeared on television in such series as Dr. Kildare. She had her
first substantial film role in Hot Rod Hulaballoo (1966). Her first big break came after
she traveled to San Francisco to appear in an American Conservatory Theater
production of Private Lives directed by Francis Ford Coppola. While on the West
Coast she played a supporting role in Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love (1973). It was
her stage work, however, that led filmmaker Mark Rydell to cast her as a pregnant
single mother who prostitutes herself in Seattle in Cinderella Liberty (1973). She beat
out Barbra Streisand, the studio's choice, for the role and won her first Academy Award
nomination. Her second nomination came from her portrayal of a divorced chorine
trying to support herself and her daughter while dealing with a series of failed
romances in Simon's comedy-drama The Goodbye Girl (1977). She and Simon were
married at the time and the famed playwright wrote the part especially for her. Mason's
co-star, Richard Dreyfuss, won a Best Actor Oscar. Simon wrote the screenplay for the
film responsible for Mason's third Oscar nomination, Chapter Two (1979), which was
an autobiographical account of their courtship. He also penned the part that landed her
a fourth nomination, Only When I Laugh (1981). Through the '80s, Mason seemed to
concentrate more on television movies, such as Love Canal (1982) and Surviving
(1985), and her feature-film appearances became sporadic. In 1991, she starred in the
short-lived sitcom Sibs. In 1997, Mason became a semi-regular on the popular NBC
sitcom Frasier, playing the love interest of Kelsey Grammar's father, John Mahoney.
| THEATER TIMES DIALOGUE |
| THEATER TIMES DIALOGUE / HELLO, GOODBYE GIRL |
Theater Masonry
Marsha Mason’s stage credits
(according to Broadway.com)
1967
The Deer Park
Bobby - A Call Girl
Lucille Lortell Theatre
(Off-Broadway)
1968
The Indian Wants
the Bronx/It's Called
the Sugar Plum
Joanne Dibble
Astor Place Theatre
(Off-Broadway)
1970
Happy Birthday,
Wanda June
Penelope Ryan
Edison Theatre
(Broadway)
1970-1972ACT
The Merchant of Venice
(1970)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1972)
A Doll's House (1972)
1973
The Good Doctor
Eugene O'Neill Theatre
(Broadway)
1974
Richard III
Lady Anne
Joseph Papp Public Theater
1983
Old Times
Kate
Roundabout Theatre Company
1985
Juno's Swans
Director
McGinn-Cazale Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1988
The Big Love
Florence Aadland
Perry Street Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1989
Love Letters
Melissa Gardner
Promenade Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1990
Lake No Bottom
Petra
McGinn-Cazale Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1996
The Night of the Iguana
Maxine Faulk
Criterion Center Stage Right
(Broadway)
1999
The Vagina Monologues
Westside Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1999
The Prisoner of
Second Avenue
Royal Haymarket Theatre
(West End)
2003
Wintertime
Maria
McCarter Theatre
(Princeton, NJ)
2004
Wintertime
Maria
Second Stage Theatre
(off-Broadway)
2005
Steel Magnolias
Ouiser
Lyceum Theatre (Broadway)
Marsha Mason’s stage credits
(according to Broadway.com)
1967
The Deer Park
Bobby - A Call Girl
Lucille Lortell Theatre
(Off-Broadway)
1968
The Indian Wants
the Bronx/It's Called
the Sugar Plum
Joanne Dibble
Astor Place Theatre
(Off-Broadway)
1970
Happy Birthday,
Wanda June
Penelope Ryan
Edison Theatre
(Broadway)
1970-1972ACT
The Merchant of Venice
(1970)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1972)
A Doll's House (1972)
1973
The Good Doctor
Eugene O'Neill Theatre
(Broadway)
1974
Richard III
Lady Anne
Joseph Papp Public Theater
1983
Old Times
Kate
Roundabout Theatre Company
1985
Juno's Swans
Director
McGinn-Cazale Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1988
The Big Love
Florence Aadland
Perry Street Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1989
Love Letters
Melissa Gardner
Promenade Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1990
Lake No Bottom
Petra
McGinn-Cazale Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1996
The Night of the Iguana
Maxine Faulk
Criterion Center Stage Right
(Broadway)
1999
The Vagina Monologues
Westside Theatre
(off-Broadway)
1999
The Prisoner of
Second Avenue
Royal Haymarket Theatre
(West End)
2003
Wintertime
Maria
McCarter Theatre
(Princeton, NJ)
2004
Wintertime
Maria
Second Stage Theatre
(off-Broadway)
2005
Steel Magnolias
Ouiser
Lyceum Theatre (Broadway)