Don't Let Him Be Such a Hero: Daniel Radcliffe
as J. Pierrepont Finch
By Shari Perkins
How to Succeed in Business
without Really Trying
By Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert
Al Hirschfeld Theater
302 W. 45th St.
Box office: 212-239-6200
More than three-quarters of the way through
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, J.
Pierrepont Finch is in trouble--and he knows it. Ensconced in
the executive washroom, the ambitious young go-getter sings a
pep song to himself, praising his "cool, clear eyes of a seeker
of wisdom and truth" and his "up-turned mouth with its grin of
impetuous youth" as he gets ready to walk into a meeting for which
he is almost completely unprepared. In past productions, this
number has been performed as a comic love song--a celebration
of Finch's narcissism and self-confidence despite all odds. But
the Finch of Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the current Broadway
revival, is not so sure of himself. He performs "I Believe in
You" with a charming--but rather disorienting to those who have
seen or heard earlier productions--anxiety, which suggests that
this J. Pierrepont Finch knows that he's in over his
head, but he is going to walk into that boardroom anyway. If the
winds blow just right, he might walk out again alive.
In this context, the words of the chorus
are strangely ironic. "Don't let him be such a hero," his threatened
fellow executives sing plaintively about a youth--hardly yet a
man--who is walking to his doom. The lines become even more loaded
when one recalls that, for most of the lives of a large percentage
of the audience, Daniel Radcliffe has embodied their generation's
greatest fictional hero, Harry Potter. Moreover, in just a few
weeks--during the run of How to Succeed--the eighth and
final Harry Potter film will open worldwide. When that happens,
Radcliffe's Harry will be taking another long walk into almost
certain doom, this time to face death at the hand of his evil
nemesis, Lord Voldemort.
In The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as
Memory Machine, Marvin Carlson asserts that the reappearance
of familiar, already-seen elements on the stage form an important
part of the audience's reception of theatrical works. The interplay
of memories form an intertextual "tissue of quotations" which
shape the work's meanings by playing on the viewers' "horizon
of expectations," a process which Carlson calls ghosting. [1]
An actor brings with him or her a collection of associations--either
with his past roles or, in the case of a celebrity like Radcliffe,
with himself--which cannot help but color the way he or she is
perceived when performing. The audience's interest in the performer's
past is not limited to the professional sphere: in "Celebrity
and the Semiotics of Acting," Michael Quinn notes that spectators
tend to seek information about the private life of celebrity performers,
forming a body of knowledge which creates an intertext, or "an
accretion, based on similar art/life connections in earlier roles,
and also on the connections the celebrity provides between the
roles themselves." [2] This body of knowledge affects audience
reception as well. In addition, roles can themselves carry similar
cultural baggage, accumulating associations over time which become
the basis for future interpretations that must either build on
or break down what has come before in a complex, ongoing process
of reinvention. [3]
This article is a consideration of the
intertextual web that surrounds Radcliffe's performance of Finch
in the 2011 Broadway revival of How to Succeed. In it,
I will consider how the concept of this musical has bled into
publicity materials and critical assessments of Radcliffe's performance,
how his physical presence and personal characteristics have reshaped
the interpretation of the role of Finch, and how Radcliffe and
director Rob Ashford have taken advantage of the audience's investment
in and curiosity about Radcliffe and his abilities in order to
shape the production as a whole.
Much of the interest this How to Succeed
revolves around questions concerning Radcliffe's professional
coming of age, his personal commitment to challenging himself,
and his viability as a Broadway star. Press surrounding his musical
theater debut has focused on the not-quite-former-child-star's
attempts to forge an acting career after his ten-year sojourn
as "the boy who lived," a role that has kept him in the public
eye since the age of eleven. The theme of many articles has been
Radcliffe's strategic attempt to continue his career beyond Harry--a
theme that dovetails nicely with Finch's calculated climb up the
corporate ladder in How to Succeed. For example, in her
USA Today piece "Daniel Radcliffe Takes Steps to 'Succeed'
after 'Harry Potter,'" Elysa Gardner announces that the star is
determined neither to become typecast as Potter nor to fail to
"age gracefully."
It
was, perhaps, his quest for adult legitimacy and distance from
the franchise that made him famous that impelled Radcliffe to
take on the role of Alan Strang in Equus (London, 2008;
Broadway, 2009). The role of a deeply disturbed youth, featuring
a scene of full-frontal nudity, was a sharp break from his child-friendly
image. Gardner points out that Radcliffe is once again playing
against type in the role of the Machiavellian Finch. This time,
however, instead of nudity and madness, Radcliffe must prove that
he can sing, dance, and carry a Broadway musical, despite being
previously unknown for those skills.
Feeding into this speculation--which was
certainly purposefully cultivated in order to draw curious audiences
to witness Radcliffe's risky endeavor--are a number of articles
highlighting the young actor's relative lack of preparation for
headlining in a musical. According to a New York Times
article by Dave Itzkoff, "Now Just a Muggle, With Song and Dance,"
Radcliffe was approached by How to Succeed's producers
after they learned that he was singing Sweeney Todd backstage
at Equus; Radcliffe recalls responding to the invitation
to star in a musical by saying, "O.K., yeah, I'll do dance lessons,
fine. But you are swimming against the tide here, Mr. Ashford."
The title of the article, which references Harry Potter and implies
that now Radcliffe must succeed without the aid of magical powers,
frames his performance in How to Succeed as the actor's
real-life battle for professional survival.
In another article, Radcliffe admits to
Gardner that having to dance "scared me. A lot. Because I had
absolutely no aptitude for it." In a third article, in Gotham
Magazine, subtitled "Beyond Harry Potter," he admits that
he is "terrified"--but this article also notes that Radcliffe
spent two years training as a singer and dancer in preparation
for the role in the hope that Ashford would not "feel like he
has to censor himself for me" and so that the director could "treat
me as much like a dancer as he can." [4] All of these articles
evoke the mythology of the Harry Potter series, which
frame the eponymous hero as "the boy who lived" against all odds,
and who must meet a challenge much larger than himself--a challenge
for which he is inevitably underprepared.
Unsurprisingly, after opening night a large
number of the reviews centered on the question of whether Radcliffe
had "succeeded" in meeting this seemingly insurmountable challenge.
New York Magazine's Scott Brown voted "yes" in "How Daniel
Radcliffe Succeeds on Broadway," while Bill Stevenson concurrred,
stating that "like Finch, he succeeds." Tom Geier for Entertainment
Weekly also conflated the professional performances of star
and character, writing that Radcliffe was a "coiled spring of
energy who manages to embody the ethos of corporate-ladder-climbing
opportunist J. Pierpont [sic] Finch with a winning combination
of youth, talent, and sheer will power"--nevermind the fact that
the musical's book states that talent is totally unnecessary for
Finch's rapid rise. On the negative side, Charles McNulty gave
Radcliffe "an A for effort" but declared that he did not have
the "theatrical stature" to pull off the role or carry such an
outdated show. In a vigorous pan entitled "Wizard of Corporate
Climbing," Ben Brantley noted that Radcliffe was "the only reason
to see the show, and contrary to what the title suggests, [he]
really, really tries." Overall, however, the reviews skewed positive,
suggesting that How to Succeed's public relations team
has successfully revised audience expectations to focus on effort
and charm--instead of judging Radcliffe according to the standards
used for, say, Sutton Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything
Goes) or Douglas Sills (The Scarlet Pimpernel),
who both rose to fame as unknowns based on their prodigious talent
and polished, charismatic performances.
Radcliffe's performance as Finch is not
only ghosted by his personal work ethic and his image as Harry
Potter, a boy who overcomes overwhelming odds to become a hero.
It is also haunted by the memory of performers who have taken
on the role in the past. At twenty-one, Radcliffe is by far the
youngest actor to portray Finch on Broadway; both Robert Morse
and Matthew Broderick were in their early to mid thirties. Moreover,
Morse and Broderick's personae are completely unlike Radcliffe's,
and their interpretations of Finch were correspondingly different.
In the 1967 film, for example, Robert Morse exhibits an almost
demonic quality during the number "I Believe in You," mugging
to his reflection, flashing his eyes with glee, and juggling his
bar of soap with consummate unconcern for his fate. He has absolutely
no doubt of his ability to overcome the greatest of odds: a high-stakes
pitch for an advertising campaign for which he is woefully unprepared.
In the 1995 Broadway revival, Matthew Broderick, despite what
McNulty described as a rather passive performance, also could
not fail to overcome any obstacle in his path. After all, he was
(and remains) recognizable to audiences as the Machiavellian trickster
Ferris Bueller, all grown up. The two characters--Bueller and
Finch--complement and reinforce each other.
Radcliffe does not receive this beneficial
reinforcement from his previous roles. If anything, the earnest
integrity and intense personal loyalty of Harry Potter is in direct
conflict with the calculating, manipulative, and emotionally neglectful
Finch. The star's extreme youth also differentiates his Finch
from Morse and Broderick, an effect that Ashford and Radcliffe
have consciously evoked. Indeed, Finch is not a particularly likeable
character. Instead of winning us over through hard work (like
Radcliffe), he garners the audience's support in the same way
that Richard III does--through his awe-inspiring ability to topple
all obstacles to his ascent. In this time of recession, Finch
could easily become a villain: his flagrant disregard for the
well-being of the company and the financial devastation he brings
down on it are a little too familiar after the recent economic
crisis, which was brought on by similar machinations.
Radcliffe's youth and his alter-ego Harry
Potter's biography combine to mitigate this effect. According
to Ashford, who was paraphrased by Itzkoff, "a Finch in his late
20s or early 30s might come off as a corporate dead-ender scheming
to dig himself out of a career rut . . . [but] audiences would
forgive someone at Mr Radcliffe's age, who simply doesn't know
any better." [5] Indeed, rather than a brilliant and devious schemer,
Radcliffe's Finch comes across as clever, extremely lucky, and
willing to let others make false assumptions if it is to his benefit.
In the same vein, his youth makes Finch's utter neglect of and
simultaneous willingness to use the talents of his love interest,
Rosemary, seem the consequence of inexperience rather than self-absorption.
At the end of this How to Succeed, one believes that
Finch could learn his lesson and grow into a decent husband, although
such hopes would be wasted on a thirty-something schemer in the
mold of Broderick or Morse.
Ashford and Radcliffe cleverly manipulate
the audience's curiosity about Radcliffe's fitness for the part.
Critic Terry Teachout amiably winks to curious readers in the
Wall Street Journal: "of course you'll be wanting to
know all about Mr. Radcliffe, and the answer is that he's a pretty
good singer and an unexpectedly good dancer." The dogged attention
to points like these in the show's journalistic coverage suggests
that audiences coming to it have three major questions, plus one
minor one: Can Radcliffe sing? Can he dance? Can he do an American
accent? And lastly, is he really that short? Because Finch sings
from almost the first moment, there is little that the director
could do with Radcliffe to play with this question. The critics--and
I--can only respond that yes, Radcliffe can sing well enough for
the part, even if he does not have the caliber voice of many less-famous
performers onstage with him. But the other three questions offer
more room for play.
Having grown up in the spotlight, Radcliffe
has drawn commentary in recent years due to his height. Although
Harry Potter is supposed to have grown tall by the end of his
years at Hogwarts, Radcliffe has remained quite visibly diminutive,
a trait particularly notable at premieres and public events when
he is surrounded by his female costars, who tower over him in
their high heels. Radcliffe mentions his height in several articles
related to How to Succeed, noting that his height gives
him increased anonymity in New York ("Its quite good being this
short; you just put up your hood and no one gives you a second
glance really"). [6] Probably a part of this benefit hails from
the disjunction between Radcliffe's perceived stature (via Hollywood)
and his actual physical build.
Ashford
has clearly taken advantage of Radcliffe's surprising shortness:
the male chorus members and featured actors in How to Succeed
are uniformly tall. In the eleven-o'clock number, "Brotherhood
of Man," Radcliffe takes the center position in the chorus and
is clearly half a foot shorter than his castmates. In "Grad Ol'
Ivy," he is once again surrounded by oversized men--this time
in football gear and padding--during a fantasy sequence that shows
Finch going for a touchdown. Both of these moments strengthen
the impression of youth and innocence discussed above. In addition,
Ashford and Radcliffe use height for humorous ends: in the role
of J. P. Biggley, the president of World Wide Wickets, Ashford
cast John Laroquette, who is 6'5". The contrast between the two
performers is comical. In the above-mentioned football sequence,
the 5'5" Radcliffe athletically vaults over his bent-over costar,
whereas Laroquette is able to step over Radcliffe by lazily lifting
one leg.
The ghost of Radcliffe's Britishness plays
less of a role in the show; his accent is convincing, and the
audience easily accepts him as an American. However, at one point
in the show his personal biography intrudes on the production.
In the big board meeting, when Finch, Biggley, and the other executives
brainstorm possible "Treasure Girls" for their proposed television
show, one of the executives suggests trying to get Queen Elizabeth
for the part. A beat passes, and Finch emphatically responds,
"Uhhh . . . this is an American show." The confluence
of Finch's dismissive attitude and Radcliffe's known nationality
transformed this rather hum-drum line into a howler. Another brief
yet effective intrusion of Radcliffe's Britishness came during
the fund-raising bid after the curtain call. Raising money for
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the leading men gave a curtain
speech. Or rather, Radcliffe did, using his natural accent. At
the end of Radcliffe's talk, Laroquette did a double-take, demanding
incredulously, "You're British!?!" to the audience's delight.
But the most artful manipulation of the
audience's expectations of Radcliffe's performance skills was
Ashford's careful revelation of his dancing skills. In the first
song of the show, Radcliffe is surrounded by dancing chorus members.
His Finch seems out of step with the bustling of the crack, corporate
dancers. Radcliffe slouches, wanders, shifts his weight back and
forth, and observes the technical skill of his castmates with
awe. In this scene, Radcliffe is not graceful, and one could easily
imagine that he is not up to the challenge of dancing a Broadway
musical.
Bit by bit, however, Ashford reveals the
fruits of his star's two years of labor: in "Company Way," Radcliffe
displays a command of rhythm in manipulating all kinds of mail,
while the chorus boys handle the bulk of the dancing. In "Grand
Ol' Ivy," near the end of the first act, Radcliffe begins to show
his athleticism, performing a dance routine composed of leaps,
push-ups, prancing, and tumbling. Although he stays mostly in
the back row, Radcliffe allows himself to be lifted, carried around,
passed from hand to hand, and flipped upside down. The climax
comes, appropriately enough, in the finale, "Brotherhood of Man,"
when Radcliffe finally breaks into full-out, Broadway-style choreography.
He dances front and center, tiny before his over-sized castmates,
though his character is triumphant. At that moment, carefully
prepared by the entire production, Radcliffe's enthusiasm and
accomplishment are suitably showcased. It is no wonder that the
audience cheers, for in that moment--right as the fast-talking
Finch rescues himself from termination and disgrace--Radcliffe,
against all odds, emerges as a triple-threat Broadway star. If
his long walk down Broadway to certain defeat failed to charm
some of Broadway's notorious Lord Voldemorts--Ben Brantley, for
instance--he has once again revealed himself as the Boy Who Lived.
---------------------------
NOTES
1. Marvin Carlson, The Haunted Stage:
The Theatre as Memory Machine (Ann Arbor: U Mich P, 2003),
4-5.
2. Michael Quinn, "Celebrity and the Semiotics of Acting," New
Theatre Quarterly 6:22 (1990), 154, 158.
3. Carlson, 78-9.
4. Bill Keith, "Daniel Radcliffe: Beyond Harry Potter," Gotham
Magazine, http://www.gotham-magazine.com/celebrities/articles/from-potter-to-pierrepont.
5. Dave Itzkoff, "Now Just a Muggle, with a Song and Dance," New
York Times, Mar. 2, 2011.
6. Keith, "Daniel Radcliffe."
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