Opening Night

The Grand Manner gives us a moment when American acting styles were changing from the romantic, larger-than-life gesturing of Katharine Cornell and the Lunts to the anti-celebrity naturalism of Marlon Brando. The opening-night party for the play, held across the street from Lincoln Center at O'Neals, represented another transition: this was the restaurant's closing night, after existing on West 64th Street in one form or another for 46 years. Because LCT has held so many celebrations at O'Neals, the occasion could have had an overly bittersweet tone. While the affair did have its wistful moments - I can't tell you how many times I overheard a party guest say "I can't believe this place is closing" - the general mood was one of merriment. The actors and the director and everyone connected with The Grand Manner had worked hard and deserved a moment to enjoy.

At the party, there was a slight sense of inside-baseball to the invitees' response to the play: "I can't believe there's an audience in the world that will get more of its references than this one" said Michael Ritchie, artistic director of the Center Theater Group in L.A. and the husband of Grand Manner's Kit Cornell: Kate Burton.

For Burton, especially, The Grand Manner is filled with real-life overlap. Her character makes her entrance having just played Cleopatra, and Burton's father, Richard Burton, played Marc Antony in a legendary movie version of Cleopatra opposite Elizabeth Taylor. What's more, Miss Cornell talks about her time in Maugham's The Constant Wife - a role that Kate Burton has played to acclaim more than once. When such correspondences were mentioned to Burton at the O'Neals party, the actress - beating the evening's harsh heat with a chic white suit - responded, "I know. It's all VERY close to home."

As for Brenda Wehle, who is Gert Macy in the play and who, at O'Neals front bar, looked as glamorous as Gert looks no-nonsense, her mind was on practical matters. "It's all about the wig," the actress said. "I'm crazy about my wig in the play. It's perfect for the character, but maybe not so perfect for me in real life!"

Boyd Gaines, who was surrounded by well-wishers each time I tried to chat him up at the party, had shed the tuxedo he wears in The Grand Manner. (He jokes that every time he does an LCT production he must wear a monkey suit: "It's in my contract.") Unlike Guthrie McClintic, his stage assignment, Gaines is not small and dapper; he is just dapper.

As for Bobby Steggert, who only two Sundays previous was sitting at the Tonys as a nominee ("It's more fun to watch on TV at home, where you can get up and take breaks" he said), his real-life-to-life-onstage remarks concerned the actress Marian Seldes. "I can't believe she's here tonight," Steggert said. "She knew Katharine Cornell. It's such an honor to be in her presence." As for Miss Seldes, when I tried to chat her up she was almost as taciturn as she was when accepting her honorary Tony earlier this month. "I have nothing to add to this evening's performance," she finally eked out. "It was eloquent and speaks for itself."

A much more boisterous party-goer deserves mention before I conclude this account. I'm speaking about Adam Smolenski, who is the Sound Board Operator at the home of The Grand Manner: the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. At O'Neals back bar, Smolenski stood with a drink and one hand and a vuvuzela in the other. For those of you who, miraculously, have managed to avoid all contact with the current World Cup, a vuvuzela is a plastic blowing horn that produces a loud, punishingly distinctive monotone note. It is traditionally used by fans at soccer matches in South Africa, and has become the World Cup's most visible, and, to some people, most obnoxiously audible, symbol.

Anyway, I suggested to Smolenski, who in a fit of enthusiasm ordered a dozen or so vuvuzelas online earlier this year, that he distribute the horns to audience members of The Grand Manner. They would be instructed to use them at the curtain call in lieu of applause. "I think that would be a dangerous trend," Smolenski observed. "What happens if the audience hated the show? Total silence!" There was no chance of such bored quiet at O'Neals. I listened for a minute to Smolenski toot lustily on the vuvuzela and then, feeling that this was somehow an appropriate send-off to both The Grand Manner and to restaurant, I fled into the tropical night.

BRENDAN LEMON is the American theater critic for the Financial Times and the editor of lemonwade.com.