Stage Notes: Zero Hour

Actor Zero Mostel was one of Broadway's giants.  Not only because of  his generous girth, but for his immense talent onstage.  He's well remembered for his comedy turns in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and in Mel Brooks's movie, The Producers; but he was also a fine musical and dramatic performer, as exhibited in Fiddler on the Roof or Ionesco's surreal Rhinoceros.  Actor/playwright Jim Brochu knew Mostel, and he has written and toured this one-person show around the country for the past few years.  His director is the great Hollywood star, Piper Laurie, a three-time Academy Award nominee for The Hustler, Carrie and Children of a Lesser God.  I spoke with Brochu.
 
How did you meet Zero?
I met him for the first time in May, 1962, when I was 16.  I had a mentor, David Byrnes, who was a character actor in Forum.  I went to see him and I sat in the Alwyn Theater, and this man, Mostel, came on stage.  I remember pushing back in my seat and thinking, "This man is a force of nature."  I went backstage after the show to see David and I turned a corner and I ran into Zero, soaking wet, still in costume.  I was going to La Salle Military Academy at the time and I was wearing my West Point uniform.  He looked at me and said, "You must be General Nuisance; what are you doing here?"  I told him I'd come to see David, and he said, "Well, you never come to see me."  "I will," I said.
 
I know the show is set in July, 1977, shortly before his death, and Zero is being interviewed. Tell me what we're going to see.
I play Zero, and I actually become him.  There is an interviewer, but we never see him.  The audience becomes the interviewer.  Zero hi-jacks the interview and begins asking his own questions.
 
I understand the piece is set in Zero's painting studio on West 28th Street.  I didn't know he was a painter.
Yes, he always said, "I'm a painter.  I only do comedy to buy more paints."  Through the questions he begins to tell the story of his life, growing up, the conflicts he had with his Jewish father, who said, "You can't create a graven image."  But he wanted to be a painter.  His mother understood and she took him to the Met museum and he would sit there for hours and copy the masters.  Later he married a Catholic Rockette and then both of his parents disowned him.
Wasn't he a comedian in the Borscht Belt?
After that he did night clubs and café society.  I recreate part of his night club act.  This was in 1941.  He had to follow Billy Holiday.  He studied acting.  He was doing a revue with Imogene Coca and Jerome Robbins.  I recreate the improv he did in his acting class, it was about a burning building.  He discovered he had a talent as an actor.
 
Didn't he make some movies?
Louis B. Mayer put him under contract at M.G.M.  His first movie was "Du Barry's Lady."  Right around that time the House Un-American Activities Committee was going after actors, and Zero got caught up.  The phone stopped ringing, the F.B.I. showed up for an interview, the bottom fell out.  That's the end of the first act.
 
So in the second act?
The second act focuses on his Broadway life, from one show to another.  He resolves his issues with Jerry Robbins, who had also named names to H.U.A.C.  They were doing Forum and Hal Prince wanted to hire Robbins as a play doctor.  Prince asked Zero if he'd mind, and he said, "Sure, I'm a lefty and we don't blacklist people."
 
So you're delivering this as an autobiographical monologue?
All this time I'm actually painting a new picture of the interviewer, every night, while I'm talking.  The pictures I painted during the Washington run are now being sold on ebay.  The ones I paint here will be donated for sale to Broadway Cares, Equity Fights Aids.
 
Theatre at St. Clements, 423 W. 46th St., (212) 239-6200. Previews Nov. 14, opens Nov. 22- Jan 21. Mon., 7 p.m.;, Thurs., Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m.; matinees, Wed. & Sat., 2 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. $35/$55.