In Last Call, the waiter Michael (Victor Petersen) contends with high-maintenance guests Leonard Bernstein (Helen Schneider, left) and Herbert von Karajan (Lucca Züchner) in the Blaue Bar of Vienna’s Hotel Sacher.
Peter Danish’s Last Call is a fairy tale with heroes, villains, operatic emotions, and a countertenor. It’s a three-actor play set in the magical kingdom of classical music during the era of two potentates, Herbert von Karajan (1908–89) and Leonard Bernstein (1918–90), who reigned supreme in concert halls and recording studios around the world for much of the 20th century.
Michael serves Maestro Bernstein a slice of the hotel’s signature Sacher Torte. Photographs by Maria Baranova.
Austrian-born von Karajan, who led the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years, was affectionately known as “the general music director of Europe.” Bernstein, a Massachusetts native, made himself the consummate New Yorker, serving as principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic for more than a decade, and creating musical portraits of his city in the hit Broadway shows On the Town, Wonderful Town, and West Side Story. The two maestros, strikingly different in style and temperament, were friends for much of their lives, though their relationship reportedly ran hot and cold.
In a program note, the playwright says he was inspired to write Last Call after an employee of Vienna’s Sacher Hotel regaled him with recollections of having served Bernstein and von Karajan in the hotel’s Blaue Bar in 1988, when the two, ages 70 and 80, respectively, ran into each other unexpectedly on the night prior to von Karajan’s valedictory Vienna performance.
“The women are formidable performers and often fun to watch.”
What fun Danish must have had fabricating the fictive conversation of these giants, rambling through a wide range of colorful recollections and regurgitating ancient rivalries and grudges so petty that they’re downright ignoble. The two talk about infirmities of age and loss of virility (as old men sometimes do); and their dialogue strains for one-upmanship, signaling extremes of insecurity in each and the reluctance of both to release their grievances. Some of the exchanges have the cadence of vaudeville sketch-comedy:
Herbert: I do confess, sometimes, when I listen to some of my old recordings, I envy the painters who can simply burn their old pictures which they don’t like.
Lenny: I know just how you feel. There are many of your old recordings that I think should be burned.
Director Gil Mehmert, professor of directing at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany, has cast two women in the roles: Helen Schneider as Bernstein and Lucca Züchner as von Karajan. Schneider, who has worked on both sides of the Atlantic and is familiar to New York audiences, was Sally Bowles and Norma Desmond in the German premieres of Cabaret and Sunset Boulevard. Züchner, known in German-speaking theater for a variety of roles, is making her New York debut in this production.
The maestros compare recollections of old times.
The women are formidable performers and often fun to watch, as they preen and stride across the broad, sparsely furnished stage in baggy, old-man attire (costumes by Renè Neumann). Their imitations of the movement and mannerisms of old white men are whimsically exaggerated, enhancing the fairy-tale quality of the proceedings. Danish’s script—with assistance from the flexible stage design by Chris Barreca—ushers the actresses into the gents’ toilet of the bar, where (in separate scenes) each renders her impression of how men deport themselves alone at a urinal. Mehmert’s direction lends an English pantomime quality to much of the activity; yet, in the longueurs of the rather disjointed script, it’s easy to suspect the actors and playwright are having more fun with the material than the audience.
Despite the broad comedic strokes in which the conductors are depicted, Last Call provides an interesting take on their real-life differences. Züchner’s characterization of the older, frailer von Karajan is quite poignant; her poise and delivery convey a sense of the perfectionism and aesthetic sensitivity for which he was known. Schneider’s blowsy, rowdy performance suggests the power, passion, and iconoclasm of Bernstein’s approach to life on and off the podium. Both performances are caricatures (and, hence, simplistic), but that seems to be the aspiration of Mehmert’s direction.
The play’s third performer is Victor Petersen, a countertenor with operatic training and a dulcet high register. Petersen plays the generally thankless role of Michael, the Sacher bartender, but he’s responsible for the production’s most memorable sequence. Through seeming stage magic, Petersen suddenly becomes a phantom Maria Callas, soaring above the stage, singing all the while, as though projected from the fond recollections of Schneider’s Bernstein and Züchner’s von Karajan, who remain earthbound as the auditorium rings with heavenly music. It’s a coup de théâtre worth the price of admission.
Last Call runs through May 4 at New World Stages, Stage 5 (340 W. 50th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday, and at 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more information, call Telecharge at (212) 239-6200 or visit lastcalltheplay.com.
Playwright: Peter Danish
Direction: Gil Mehmert
Scenic Design: Chris Barecca
Costume Design: Renè Neumann
Lighting Design: Michael Grundner
Sound Design: Lindsay Jones
