INSERT – Accidentally Funny?
HELLO DOLLY: Mark Wyrick and The Napkin
1982
During an abbreviated NYC run of Hello Dolly, got a chance to work with Mark Wyrick, an excellent former member of the Oklahoma ballet. Beautiful dancer.
6’2”, blonde, handsome, athletic.
And funny.
F-U-N-N-Y.
****
Hello Dolly is filled with signature musical numbers. One of them is The Waiters’ Gallop, a ten-minute cardio workout on the order of the last 200 meters of an Everest ascension.
The original choreography by Gower Champion is also an homage to athletic technique, visual jokes, and ballet. It requires a property staff operating under the pressure of perfection.
And they performed to that level, except for one night.
****
One part of the number has the waiters dancing allegro while balancing trays of dishes and glasses (Yes, we glued them to the trays). The waiters disappear into the “kitchen” and return with tablecloths.
The fabric, twice the size of a matador’s cape, is used in the same fashion. Twirled overhead. Rolled up. Flipped around. Folded like Origami. Tossed like pizza.
Eventually laid on a table.
And the whole time, the waiters are twirling, rolling, flipping, folding, and tossing their bodies.
It’s brilliant.
One evening’s performance displayed Mark Wyrick’s improvisation abilities.
The waiters finished the tray-carrying part and hustled backstage to get the tablecloths.
Five of the six pulled a tablecloth from their designated area.
Mark Wyrick’s prop space? Empty.
He grabbed a napkin, and kept his place in line.
****
Picture this.
The tallest dancer, by four inches, is now doing all the visual gags with a fifteen inch by fifteen-inch square of cloth . . . as opposed to the shorter performers, all carrying a six foot by six-foot tablecloth.
Mark Wyrick executed every move. Every single one of them
If only cell phone cameras had been around then.
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