Wednesday, October 28, 2009

"Like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic..."

Whole songs and chunks of dialogue disappeared and new material had to be learned. Sets and costumes changed. "It was Dunkerque," recalls [Patricia] Routledge. "I never knew how I would get to the end of the show. Sometimes I didn't know which way I was facing." Adds [Ken] Howard: "I couldn't sleep or eat. I found it hard to focus my mind on what I was doing onstage. I became a zombie, an automaton." But, says Howard, the endless changes that were made in the show were only "like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

- The two stars of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on the chaos of the experience in an informative article documenting the show's failure from the May 31, 1976 edition of Time Magazine.

1 comment:

Roxie said...

Hahaa! That is fabulous - do you know that they are recreating the Titanic's trip (minus, hopefully, the whole iceberg thing) on the 100th anniversary of the original voyage.

"Knock, knock...fate - are you home?"