You know Murray Burns.
He’s a Seize-The-Day kind of guy who has no patience for the drudging 9 to 5. He’s always quick with a joke, and lives his life—it seems—to increase his corner-bar repertory of stories. His apartment is as much personal museum as living quarters, filled with curbside and rummage-sale finds, some of which might serve as props for various daily rituals, like a Tin Pan Alley ukulele recital or a mock fencing bout complete with full face mask.
You also know Murray—and I don’t think he’d mind if I call him Murray—because you’ve seen his spiritual brethren—Bill Murray in Stripes or Tootsie or perhaps any one of the You Can’t Take It With You Clan. They are all rebels of the kinder, gentler sort, who—unlike Brando and his Wild Ones—know exactly what they are rebelling against, but are content to live life on their own terms, skirting around the edges, rather than make the world conform to their ideals.
And if you’ve been to the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s ebullient and touching production of A Thousand Clowns you really know Murray because you’ve seen Tom Klubertanz bring him marvelously to life in a kinetic and pitch-perfect performance.
Herb Gardner’s play is a fitting kick-off to an MCT season devoted to “Rebels,” but the social defiance here is of a particular sort. A Thousand Clowns was written in 1962, before rebellion had been made commonplace by corporate rock ‘n’ roll and before Madison Avenue started selling it back to us as blue jeans and overpriced t-shirts. The New York City here isn’t necessarily a sea of gray-flannel suits, but when the purposefully unemployed Murray goes to weekday double features in 42nd-Street movie houses, everyone seems a little ashamed to be there (and this is long before that street became X-rated).
Gardner’s play—a Broadway hit in 1962 that became a beloved Jason Robards film—is a finely wrought character sketch of Murray, a TV-comedy writer who hasn’t worked in months. He and his precocious nephew, Nick (Thomas Kindler), live a life of their own invention, exploring the city and waxing eloquent on the joys of the perfect pastrami sandwich. The trouble comes when social services comes a knocking, suspicious of Nick’s “unstable” household, and the threat of losing Nick to a foster home forces Murray is back into the world of employment.
Director Jonathan West guides an impressive cast in this production. Matt Daniels is the uptight lead social worker charged with Murray’s case. His sidekick, Beth Mulkerron, handles her character’s extended crying jag with an impressive array of glottal-stopped wails. As Murray’s brother, a successful talent agent, Patrick Lawlor is a period authentic voice of sanity. And Stephan Roselin gives just the right maniacal edge to Murray’s former boss, a kid’s-show host (Chuckles the Chipmunk) who makes The Simpson’s Krusty the Clown seem like Captain Kangaroo by comparison.
But the show belongs to Klubertanz, who inhabits Murray body and soul. Even as Murray’s infectious spirit makes the stage glow, Klubertanz lets the angst seep out around the edges. Watch him in his brother’s office (an ominously tidy manifesto in mid-century modern by set designer Brandon Kirkham), its very neatness and order giving him the jitters. And the quiet understatement in his face when his nephew pays him the ultimate tribute at the show’s end. Gardner may be gone (he died in 2003), but A Thousand Clowns lives on, thanks to fine productions like this, in all its poignancy and good humor.
