First in a series.
[Editor’s Note: One of Us and the Other of Us stepped inside the legendary 92-year-old Pasadena Playhouse last Saturday evening for a lifetime-scale performance, Frank Ferrante, in his 30th season of a one-man show, as The One, the Only Groucho!]
Ms. Morse
Dateline Pasadena – Did we just see Groucho Marx, the most distinctive, if not distinguished, comedian of his era, nearly a century ago? Or was it really Frank Ferrante, a hometown boy from Sierra Madre who truly has made good under an unlikely name for a nice Italian Catholic boy, Groucho Marx?
Dead, lo, these 38 years, Julius Henry Marx, who shortened his name and lengthened his career by morphing into Groucho, left us, infirm, at the age of 86 in 1977.
Legal vagaries of nature notwithstanding, Mr. Marx sprang from his grave in a Mission Hills cemetery, landing smack on the Pasadena Playhouse stage over an unforgettable weekend.
Someone who strongly resembled Groucho, wildly entertained three consecutive sold-out crowds. Cheering every elevator exercise of the world’s most recognizable eyebrows, old and new fans were treated to the almost-real vaudeville-movies-television comedian, the most famous of the five Marx brothers, at his zaniest.
It was the person himself, The One, the Only Groucho, as announcer George Fenneman used to say, relating the story, not someone playing a role.
Or so we were led to believe…We were gently invited, lulled by an all knowing, Come with me look, invited into the inner sanctum of the artist’s dressing room – right on stage.
The sometimes-Mr. Marx is Mr. Ferrante all the time
Frank Ferrante privies us to the actor’s secret of transformation, right before our eyes. Frank pays Groucho the highest respect: I will not be you. But through you, I will learn about me and tell your story. And that he did.
What impressed me most is that I never felt the incredibly agile and believable Mr. Ferrante to be an impersonator. By definition, he couldn’t be because the man behind the moustache already had revealed himself.
Nothing is wrong with impersonators. I don’t want to convey that impression. I like them. They are fun, authentic, entertaining. They make me smile.
There was something more to Frank’s interpretation of Groucho, Frank Ferrante is more like a storyteller.
Mr. Ferrante being dressed in character actually made the evening better. It takes a tremendous talent to be able to do what he has achieved, playing this remarkable role for fully 60 percent of his 52-year-old life, from USC undergrad days to this moment.
One thing he did supporting the idea he was not being a mere impersonator was that he allowed us into his dressing room in the opening moments on stage.
He wanted to take us on his intensely specialized journey of transformation. He made a point of that by establishing who he was.
He is just Frank at the beginning. Grew up in Sierra Madre. Went to LaSalle High School. Played sports and music on the way to USC.
He establishes his bio and all of that at the start. Then he says, “Come with me into my world.”
Standing before a slender, early 20th century mirror that could have belonged to someone’s great-grandparents at least, Mr. Ferrante applied huge, black trademark eyebrows, moustache and rimless glasses.
“This,” he said, “is how I transform from Frank into Groucho. This is what I do. I am taking you with me behind the scenes into my personal world.”
I felt as if I were in a performance, but I also was sitting on the window sill of an actor’s dressing room.
In full costume and persona, Frank Ferrante skillfully morphs into Groucho. More accurately, melding a sense of himself identifying so strongly with this character that more than once in the performance, I forgot where one started and the other began.
(To be continued)