She Ain't Heavy, She's My Mother Read online

  Beep. “Bryan, it’s Barbara Sanders calling from Honey Sanders’s office … your agent, sorry it’s been so long, but … NO … tell them no … no … over my dead body will he go back into Cats FOR LESS MONEY, AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN! SHUT UP TELL ANDREW LLOYD WEBHEAD HE CAN CALL ME COLLECT … Doll, it’s some good news. You got it! Che in Evita, you’ll have to grow a beard, but hey. Good cast. Sue Cella, who covered Patti on Broadway, will be Eva, and David Brummell, who did the tour, a dead ringer for Peron. The money is not Broadway, but it’s a lead, you are young, and it’s a great opportunity, so you’ll do it. I already did the deal. Come sign your contract before you leave for Akron, Ohio, day after tomorrow, now I did get you star billing, star housing, though that ain’t saying much. So way to go, remember one thing, kiddo, and I know I don’t need to tell you this, be on time, keep your nose clean, don’t make waves, that’s what I’m here for, and try not to fish off the company pier, if you get my drift, it’s always a bitch when you get back to the real world.”

  Salvation!

  The next day two great college friends took me out for a birthday bon voyage dinner. Leslie Castay, who had moved to New York at the same time to become an actress, and David Pons, my fraternity little brother/young Elvis lookalike, marched me into the ever-thrifty Second Avenue Sezchuan Hunan Cottage II. It was the home of General Ching’s chicken, prepared the very same way for Chairman Mao, and all the cheap rotgut box wine one could drink! Heaven. We laughed as we stumbled home and my unsuspecting friends chided that perhaps I’d meet Miss Right in Akron, crazier things have happened. All I knew was that I had to keep my secret safe; otherwise I would lose these dear friends as well as all my childhood, high school, and college friends whom I adored, not to mention my family. Too much to risk, so I bottled it up, with the bottle.

  “Yeah, who knows, I love tall, wholesome blondes, and the Midwest is full of them, right?”

  The next morning I was on the plane to Akron, Ohio, the Rubber Capital of the World, to play Che in Evita, a role I had longed to play for years. Seated next to me was a very stylish and accessorized lady who wore bright jewel tones and a large, low-slung eighties belt, tights, and ankle boots, and carried a Perry Ellis faux leopard coat. My kind of gal. Within a few moments we came to the realization that we were both in the show and she was Susan Cella, who would play Eva. She had many other credits, like the original companies of On the Twentieth Century and Me and My Girl. I was certainly impressed and somewhat intimidated.

  Soon we would be settled in our temporary hotel rooms for a few days of rehearsal until the cast of Maury Yeston’s Phantom of the Opera closed and moved out. Later we would move to the same depressing tract housing they had occupied, four units per structure all in a row, with parking in front and snow-covered woods in back. Thank God the principal players did not have to share bedrooms as the chorus members did, just the common areas of kitchen and living room. On our first night, there was a sort of impromptu get-together at the Carousel Dinner Theater, where we were to dine and see the show, or, as it came to be known, “chew and view.” There was a lot of the noisy activity typical of theatre people arriving at a hotel, shrill screams of those who had worked together before, and lots of doors shutting and calls down the hall. I now started to understand why some hotels in the past had refused actors. Suddenly there was a knock at my door, and when I opened it, there stood a tall, lanky young man with a very handsome face and the most beautiful crystal blue eyes I’d ever seen. I was caught off guard for a moment, and he was as well. For a split second we just stood there looking at each other, until I said, “Hi, are you in the show?”

  He answered quickly, “Um, yes, I am. Tom, Tom Cianfichi. I’m in the ensemble and understudying Magaldi.”

  We both reached out our hands at the same time to shake, and they remained together unnoticed by either of us throughout our conversation. As much as I tried, I could not remember how he pronounced his last name.

  “Uhhh, nice to meet you, I’m playing Che. I’m Bryan, Bryan Batt.”

  “That’s great, great role … Uhhh … I was looking for a James Anderson, he’s supposed to be my roommate, but I can’t seem to find him.”

  “Sorry, Tom, but I’ve not met him yet.”

  We then noticed our hands and pulled them away. I quickly spoke to cover the awkward moment. “Are you going to see the show tonight? Uhhh, I was going to see if Sue wants to sit together, she’s our Eva, been in a bunch of Broadway shows. I’ve only been in one, Starlight Express. You could sit with us.”

  “Sure, that sounds great, I’ll find this James Anderson and get settled; see you at the van at six. Thanks.”

  “Sure, see you at the van. How seventies, right? Uhhh, see you at six.”

  I closed the door, and swore I could hear children singing “The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music” just like the moment in the film of The Sound of Music when Captain Von Trapp is berating Maria for making play outfits from the old curtains for the children, then off in the distance their angelic voices are heard and his heart begins to melt. That was the feeling I was experiencing at the moment, new, wonderful, and frightening. Over the next two weeks of rehearsal we would hang out together, and finally, on opening night, April 1, 1989, after a few Casa Rosada Colada specialty drinks at the Carousel Dinner Theater’s Brass Ring Bar, as we lagged behind the crowd through the dark backstage labyrinth, we shared a kiss. The next day Tom overheard one of the female members of the ensemble saying, “I think Bryan likes me,” but he knew otherwise.

  Over the next weeks and months of the run, we took walks, made each other dinners and breakfasts, and enjoyed the fun part of a burgeoning relationship, the discovery. The only problem was that I was still completely closeted and was terrified by the idea of anyone knowing my secret. I don’t know how he put up with me through this period, which lasted a good year and a half, but amazingly he did. As the snow-covered land gave way to the greens of spring, and bright yellow forsythia blossomed, we grew closer together, and often covert clandestine trysts were arranged due to our spring fever. One day my housemate, Gibb Twitchell, who played Magaldi, was off to search antique malls in the surrounding area for his beloved Roseville pottery, an excursion that would take at least several hours. So quickly I called Tom over to visit. Just after the games had begun, I heard the front door open. Gibb had come back, and he called out, “Bryan, are you here? I decided not to go after all.”

  Tom froze as a look of unadulterated panic came over my heated face.

  “I’ll be right out, Gibb, just getting dressed.”

  Barely whispering I handed Tom his clothes and hurried him into the closet, whispering to him that I would let him know when the coast was clear to make an exit. I quickly jumped into my jeans and shoes, buttoning my oxford shirt as I nonchalantly sauntered out of my bedroom, “Gibb, I think I’ll take a little walk, it’s so beautiful out today,” I said ever so casually as I made my way to the door, trying not to look back into my bedroom for traces of Tom. I quickly flew down the front plank stairs, and when I reached the parking lot which was our front yard, the idea came. I looked over my shoulder at the wooded area directly behind the row of housing and walked toward it, then suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, look at that snake, I’ve never seen a snake that huge! Everyone come see, oh my God … Gibb! Sue! Everyone! What kind of snake is that?”

  One by one the cast rushed to my side, looking for the serpent, some of the over-actors actually claiming to see the snake. When nearly everyone was in the back looking for the figment of my reptilian imagination, I noticed Tom coming down my steps to join the fray, and with a wink all was fine. We would encounter far more trying events and adversity, but an irrevocable bond had formed that would not be undone.

  Confessions of a Cat

  FROM DECEMBER OF 1990 until December of 1992 I was the biggest pussy on Broadway. For six months on the road plus a year and a half on Broadway, I was in the cast of
Cats. Whatever cartilage I had left in my knees after my year roller-skating in Starlight Express was completely destroyed after this stint. And although my joints are shot and I can predict the weather with my left knee, I would not trade the thrill of having appeared in either of those Broadway extravaganzas for anything.

  The Broadway company of Cats was approaching its ninth year when I eagerly and happily joined the troupe. Some of the original members or early replacements were still dancing in the litter box, and there were quite a number of bitter cast members who seriously needed attitude adjusting. Some of the more jaded leotard-clad felines actually felt as if they were doing management a favor by showing up to work. This bitchy attitude was completely lost on me. Yes, we were in a huge, long-running hit.

  Yes, we were unrecognizable at the stage door. And yes, at this point our audiences were predominantly drowsy non-English-speaking tourists. (I am convinced they were shuttled directly from JFK airport to the Winter Garden Theater. When the lights dimmed they fell fast asleep, and it gave me great mischievous pleasure to startle them awake as I crawled through the audience reciting T. S. Eliot’s “The Naming of Cats.”) But I knew that the number of actors who would kill for this job would stretch around 51st Street, and so I acted accordingly—professionally and gratefully.

  I looked to the late, great Laurie Beechman as an example. I had been a fan of Laurie’s since I first saw her as the narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. She was a pint-sized dynamo with a huge, spine-tingling voice and a kind, loving heart. She quickly became a dear friend and confidante to me as well as to Tom. When we met she was battling stage three ovarian cancer, which she would continue to fight for eight years. She simply amazed me with her strength, talent, and grace.

  About nine months into my Broadway run, while Laurie brilliantly belted out the show’s trademark song, “Memory,” my eyes wandered into the audience. My gaze fell upon a grandmother, mother, and son, seated in the very same box seat that Mom, Moozie, and I shared at my first Broadway show some fifteen years before. I felt a warmth I’d never felt before, and as the months progressed, I would often look at that box and think of that magical, life-changing night so many years ago and of the storied history of this landmark theatre. West Side Story, Mame, and Funny Girl all played in this beautiful temple to the gods of Comedy and Tragedy, which was now transformed into an oversized junkyard.

  Although I was grateful for the part and well compensated, I was beginning to tire, body and soul. Dancing in eight performances a week was exhausting, and doing the claw-and-paw hand gestures and perfecting my tail-flicking technique were not satisfying my desire to be an actor. I continued with voice and acting classes, but I didn’t want to act in my living room or a studio. I wanted to act on a stage, in a play, again.

  After expressing this desire to my new agent, Bill Timms, at the agency I then referred to as IKEA of musical comedy because they signed everyone on Broadway, I soon had an audition scheduled for a new play by Paul Rudnick. I had seen Rudnick’s play I Hate Hamlet a couple of years before on Broadway and thought it was hysterical. I was also impressed with the small off-Broadway theatre that was producing the new show. The WPA Theatre under the watch of Kyle Rennick had given audiences Little Shop of Horrors and Steel Magnolias. Who knew, I thought, maybe this new play, Jeffrey, could make it as well.

  A copy of the play, with a note saying that I would be auditioning for the role of Darius, was sent to my dressing room at the litter-box theatre. So before I slapped on the kitty-cat makeup, I read a little and laughed. Then, while stretching before the opening, I read a little more and laughed a little more, now out loud. I found myself unable to put the script down during intermission or during my breaks offstage. It was a gay-themed AIDS comedy, and, strange as that seems, it was funny and brilliant. Just the perfect cutting-edge type of play I wanted to be associated with. I was to audition for the role of Darius, a truly innocent but typical dancer/chorus boy who was appearing in Tommy Tune’s Broadway show Grand Hotel. A strapping brunette with severe eyebrows, I thought I was anything but a dancer/chorus boy, typical or atypical. Slight and blond I was not. In retrospect, many times I was cast in roles that for some reason or another I thought I was not properly suited for, and even more I was not cast in roles that I thought myself perfect for. This is a crazy subjective business, so I followed the great words of Phyllis Newman: go to the audition, take the job, and ask questions later.

  Despite my ever-present fear of rejection, I went to the call at the casting office of Johnson, Liff, and Zerman. I had prepared the requested scenes, and wore my audition uniform of fitted black jeans, denim shirt, and black boots. For years I would tend to be so focused or nervous at auditions that I sometimes could not recall what I did or how it went, but this one was different. There was no pressure because I had a good job already, and Paul Rudnick and the director, Chris Ashley, made me feel at ease from the start. I thought it went well, and the next day Bill called to say that indeed the audition had gone very well, and that I was to be called back the next week.

  Mom was scheduled to visit New York the same dates, for what she called her Bryan fix. She would come up a few times a year, at least once with Aunt Carol and Uncle Jack, who had become second parents to me since my father’s death. They consistently went above and beyond the call of duty with their kindness, love, and generosity. Family is one thing, but I do believe in the family of choice. By this point Moozie was living with Mom. She had moved in after Dad died, and would stay until she died ten years later. Arrangements had been made for Moozie to stay with Aunt Vilma when Mom was traveling. Throughout this period, Moozie would be in and out of the hospital and at death’s door so many times that we nicknamed her “Boomerang,” because she always came back.

  I met them as they were finishing getting settled in their suite at the Regency. Aunt Carol was dressed in head-to-toe polka dots with a huge hat, sporting a vibrant bunch of red cherries. Aunt Carol never held back. She was and is her own wonderful creation, and I adore that about her. Usually we would head directly to La Grenouille for lunch. Mom and Carol admired the breathtaking floral arrangements, and Uncle Jack enjoyed trying his latest Creole-meets-Borscht Belt jokes on the waiters.

  But oddly enough, neither the servers nor anyone else in earshot seemed to mind his political incorrectness, maybe because he would laugh so heartily at his own jokes that it became infectious and everyone joined in. But once in a while he would cross the line and I would check my salad for spit. Today Mom had an appointment with Mr. Beau at Saks, so La Grenouille and Uncle Don Rickles would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Upon arriving at Saks, Mom suggested that we have a quick snack at Café SFA, as we were a little early for her appointment. As we waited in line for a table, I asked Mom to hear my lines for my upcoming callback. She had done this many times in the past, and it was fun to watch her “act.” I had forgotten about the nature of the play completely as I became more comfortable with my life. Tom had moved in, but was still a “roommate” to my family, and by this point all of my friends in New York knew, and some in New Orleans; I never really had to tell them, they just got it, knew it, and accepted me for it. Only my mother and brother didn’t officially realize what was in plain view.

  Nonetheless, I handed her the pages, showed her where to start, and we were off. At first I don’t think she really understood what was going on in the scene, but when I delivered something along these lines (which would later be cut), “Jeffrey, I may be HIV-positive, but I am still going to be gay, I am still going to wear my leather jacket and go dancing at the Roxy,” Mom didn’t flinch. She simply smiled, lowered her great tortoiseshell frames that I had picked out for her on her last visit, and said ever so softly, “Sweetheart, that was wonderful. You certainly know those lines well, and your acting was lovely, but honeydew, let’s keep it down. We are in Saks.”

  At that moment I knew that if I landed this role, I would have to come out to her. Now I pr
ayed to be cast, and to be cast free.

  The next day we scheduled shopping and lunch around my callback, which was held at the WPA Theatre on West 23rd Street between Tenth and Eleventh avenues. My name was called, and I read the scenes to the pleasant laughter of the tiny casting audience. When I was finished, Paul Rudnick asked, laughing his inimitable laugh, “Bryan, are you really in Cats?”

  I smiled, striking an iconic Gillian Lynn—choreographed cat pose, answering, “Yup, now and forever.”

  This cracked the room up, as the often-mocked advertising line for the show was “Cats: Now and Forever!” I did get the role, but then Paul rewrote my part to actually be a chorus boy from Cats, so there would be no escaping unitard and leg warmers for at least another year. Jeffrey opened to rave reviews and played a limited engagement at the WPA, then transferred to the Minetta Lane Theatre in the West Village for an open-ended commercial run. Mom and her entourage came north to see the critically acclaimed show, and even though I had warned her about the language and subject matter, I wasn’t sure how she’d react.

  She was dealing with several painful and stressful issues at the time, including selling our family home that Dad had designed and built, moving to a town house that I did not like or approve of, and dealing with Moozie’s ongoing medical issues. But I had to tell her, as I had vowed in Saks. I had to bite the bullet and just do it. So, the night after she saw the show, we came back to my apartment. Tom had gone out, and after a bottle of wine, when I could no longer avoid her questions or her eyes, I told her.

  It wasn’t horrible; it wasn’t easy. I still wonder how she didn’t already know, like everyone else. I mean, I had picked out her clothes, shoes, handbags, and jewelry since sixth grade. I hadn’t had a girlfriend for years. And I lived with a very handsome man in a one-bedroom apartment! Remember Liza! Get a calculator and figure it out!