The Music Woman

Longtime Princeton resident Mary Martello plays four roles in the world premiere of ‘Embarrassments’ at the Wilma Theater.

By: Matt Smith

Princeton resident Mary Martello in Embarrassments, a new musical set in Victorian London (above and left). The show is at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia through Jan. 4. Below: Ms. Martello in Café Puttanesca at the Arden Theatre Company, also in Philadelphia.

   These days, "musical" is practically Mary Martello’s middle name. The actress is on a run of song-and-dance spectacles that includes Damn Yankees, Jekyll & Hyde and The Sound of Music, as well as My Fair Lady and She Loves Me. She also has performed in more adventurous fare of late, including the world premieres Bat Boy and Café Puttanesca, both in Philadelphia.
   "That’s a lot of musicals," quips Ms. Martello, who is now appearing in, you guessed it, a musical. The Barrymore Award-winner is using her pipes in yet another new work, Embarrassments, at the Wilma Theater, also in Philadelphia. The show, which runs through Jan. 4, features a book by Laurence Klavan and music by Polly Pen, lyrics by Mr. Klavan and Ms. Pen, and additional text by Ms. Pen.
   A challenging-yet-comedic piece based on actual events, Embarrassments travels back to London’s West End for a single day in 1895. Victorian novelist Henry James is making an attempt at playwriting and his initial effort, Guy Domville (the French pronunciation), is hours away from curtain. As James battles a case of opening-night jitters, he imagines a parallel story about a New York playwright also struggling to see his vision fully realized on the stage.

   A longtime Princeton resident and McCarter Theatre veteran, Ms. Martello is playing four roles, two in Henry James’ "real" life, and two within the short story unraveling in James’ imagination. In the latter, she portrays an actress jealous of an ill-prepared leading lady, plus that lead’s octogenarian aunt. In the former, she appears as a theater patron seated next to James at a performance of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, as well as author Arnold Bennett, here a theater critic attending the opening of Guy Domville. As Bennett, Ms. Martello shares what must be a somewhat surreal number with George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, who were also critics at the time.
   "The wonderful thing about it," says Ms. Martello, relaxing in the Wilma lobby before an afternoon rehearsal, "is that I’m fully costumed as a man and wear a mustache, but there’s no pretense to make it sound like a man. It’s a piece written for two men and a woman’s voice — no apologies, no hiding, no nothing."

   Ms. Pen’s off-kilter songs make no pretension toward typical toe-tapping Broadway tunes. But while you may not be able to sing them in the shower the next morning, they are memorable in their own way, says Ms. Martello.
   "They are not like anything else," she notes, "and not one song is like any other song. There are a variety of styles, in a very specifically Polly style. I’ve heard other music of hers, and I find the songs in this show less atonal. It is hard for me to make a judgment about the show, because I’ve learned the music from the inside out, but there are some really beautiful pieces. The harmonies are hard, and some of them are very odd, but I think things will stick in your head when you go home."
   Unfortunately, throughout her career, Ms. Martello has not been someone who sticks in the head of casting directors at auditions.
   "The best way for me to get work is when somebody sees my work, because I’m just kind of dull and normal to talk to," she says, half joking. "When I walk into a room, or even at an audition, it’s like, ‘Well, she can sing,’ or ‘Oh yeah, she’s smart,’ or ‘She caught the comedy in that.’ In my idea of myself, I turn into different people when I’m on stage. You can’t tell just by talking to me."
   Ms. Martello has become a familiar face on Philadelphia stages in the last five years, but spent the previous few years coming up empty at auditions in the City of Brotherly Love before landing roles in Blood Brothers and The Triumph of Love at the Walnut Street Theatre. The transition was difficult for the actress, who had an earlier string of successes during Nagle Jackson’s tenure as McCarter Theatre artistic director in the 1980s, including a stint as the Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol, a role she remembers for its unique entrance.
   "She’s in a chair covered with rags, and her costume was rags, so basically she just stood up," Ms. Martello recalls, "but you had no idea she was there. It was like magic… There you are, sitting in a chair, and you feel completely exposed. The stage managers adjust little cloths over your face, your hands and your head, and you sit there, but it doesn’t feel like you’re disappeared — but you are."
   Ms. Martello has surely felt invisible during stretches in her stage career, but the actress has been around the block enough times to know that you can’t take prosperity for granted, or let the lean times defeat you.
   "I have had moments of envy when people I went to school with seemed to really be going far in their careers and I was still doing some little summer theater somewhere, or dealing with kids and part-time jobs," she says, "but the truth is, in this business, it evens out. You have those times of your life where things arc and who you are, the essence of your personality, fits your age and looks so well that everything comes together and you embody some mythical image that everybody has about a certain type of character or a few types of characters and boom, there you are.
   "And then, when that falls off, you have to wait until you make a transition into the next thing. Some people give up during those transition times and other people don’t — they wait it out and have whole new kinds of careers. John Travolta is a famous example, but the rest of us not-so-famous examples of that, we’re still doing it. We just hang in there."
Embarrassments plays at the Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, through Jan. 4. Performances: Tues.-Wed. 7:30 p.m.; Thurs. 7:30 p.m. (no performance Dec. 25, Jan. 1); Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 2, 8 p.m.; Sun. 2, 7:30 p.m. (no 7:30 p.m. performance Dec. 14, Jan. 4); Dec. 10, 31, 2 p.m.; Dec. 22, 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $9-$50. For information, call (215) 546-7824. On the Web: www.wilmatheater.org