One of the most beloved TV shows in history will come alive on stage with the Philadelphia premiere of “Love Lucy: Live On Stage,” Dec. 26-29 at the Merriam Theater.
The musical stage event transports the audience back to the golden age of television, when the show was filmed.
“You’re going back in time and you’re at Desilu Studios,” actor Sirena Irwin, who plays the titular character, said. “You have one episode from 1951 and one episode from 1953.”
Irwin said stepping into the role of such a legendary performer as Lucille Ball, and such a widely recognized character like Lucy Ricardo, was a bit intimidating.
So much so that she almost didn’t take the role.
“It’s extraordinarily daunting to do such a thing,” Irwin said. “I did try to talk the director out of casting me. But he assured me that he didn’t want an impersonator. He wanted an actor who could capture her essence and bring the character to life. So I decided to take the plunge.”
Almost everybody on earth who has access to electricity knows the four main characters of the series — Lucy, her husband and Latin bandleader Ricky, her best friend Ethel and Ethel’s gruff husband Fred — like family. At least we thought everybody did. Irwin admitted she didn’t know the show very well until she was cast.
“It’s funny, I came from a perspective of not being familiar with the show,” she said. “It’s crazy. Obviously I was living under a rock. I didn’t grow up with television. Before I auditioned for the show, I knew of ‘I Love Lucy.’ I’d seen it at a friend’s house a few times but I didn’t understand the show. I didn’t have a very clear sense of what it was other than the iconic image of Lucy. I was at a huge deficit. Now it just seems unacceptable. But that is where I was.”
But she got a crash course in all things “I Love Lucy,” watching every single episode in preparation for the show.
“It’s been such an exciting process to get to know this show and get to know this character, going from zero to watching all 179 episodes. I now have a section of my library that is all dedicated to Lucy. It’s been a really interesting journey for me.”
Out actor Mark Christopher Tracy, who plays the show’s host, Maury Jasper, also admitted he wasn’t too familiar with the show, but for different reasons.
“I never watched it when I was a kid,” he said. “I had friends where who were Lucy-philes and they can quote entire episodes. I love [Irwin] dearly but she’s from another planet. I loved television growing up and we were allowed to watch lots of it, within reason. But Sirena grew up in some Bohemian house where they didn’t know what the box with the screen on it was.” While he’s not playing someone who appeared on screen in the TV show, Tracy, as Jasper, takes the audience through the experience of watching the shows being taped.
“Mark is really the hub of the wheel,” Irwin said of her costar. “He’s the warm-up guy and takes the audience on the journey. He’s fascinated by the early 1950s and is a collector of things from that era. He’s absolutely wonderful in the part. He’s the guide and the audience goes along with him. The audience gets to see the filming of two episodes and they are also treated to our resident singing group and they sing commercial jingles from the era. We have an orchestra on stage with us so it’s exciting.”
“It’s so fun because people come to our show with a huge bag of expectations and they have the whole show imprinted on their memory,” Tracy added. “It’s not that they just saw it yesterday, they’ve seen it for 20 years. So for them to see a color, live-action version acted out in front of them in Desilu Studios is really transformative. And that’s not me saying it. That’s me quoting people who have seen it. I think it’s a really unique experience and people really dig it.”
With a number of classic episodes they could have chosen to recreate on stage, the producers wanted to focus on those that were conducive to the limitations they have in a live setting.
“What they really wanted was episodes where all four of the main characters were featured prominently,” Irwin said. “They wanted episodes that had the opportunity for song. They wanted episodes where Lucy was trying to get into the show. They had to rule out anything with Little Ricky. After they went through everything, they wanted to have two sets. They wanted to have the Tropicana and the apartment. It came down to six episodes and they made their choice from that. The iconic episodes we think of, like the chocolate factory and the grape stomping, they would be harder to pull off because of props and wardrobe and trying to turn around that quickly after having chocolate all over your face.”
“There are ones that lend themselves better to presentation in front of a live audience, that have a limited number of location changes and don’t involve guest stars, which is a ploy that they went to in the latter half of their run,” Tracy added. “I think it’s their intention to introduce different episodes as the ‘I Love Lucy’ experience continues. And the best part about it is that they all have to have me. So you can see why I’m tickled to be involved in this.”
Tracy said that while he doesn’t have the pressure of performing as a character everybody knows and recognizes, he does carry the creative weight of being a crucial part of the show.
“A friend told me that I have the hardest job, but the easiest job,” he said. “I do talk a lot. I talk for pages and pages. I have to take care of my voice. Then again, I am a creation. I’m not a real person. I’m creating this warm-up guy who is not just responsible for keeping the audience elevated but also explaining the technical aspects of television. The warm-up guys, it’s their job to tell the jokes and juggle if necessary and fill those gaps and keep the ball rolling. With me it’s delightful. I have a great time. I have a fair amount of improv experience. I don’t generally feel unsteady on my feet. But every once in a while something will come along that requires some fast thinking. It’s the kind of thing that happens in television all the time. In our case, I can do no wrong because people aren’t comparing me against someone they are familiar with. It’s a lot of fun and I have a lot of fun doing it.”
Tracy said he tries to stay in 1950s character, even if the audience participating in the show doesn’t.
“I try to be a stickler on the details,” he said. “I think the best thing I can do to serve the show, besides keeping the energy up, is if I do improvise, I have the responsibility to make sure the information I’m pulling out of my back pocket is accurate. And of course to not ever use any kind of modern slang and anachronistic references, and certainly not profanity. We had a lady who had a cocktail before the show, so when I asked who knew their ‘I Love Lucy’ trivia, she raised her hand. We do this thing where they have to ring in to answer. I think she was a little upset that she hadn’t rung in in time and she let go with the s-word. And the whole place froze. And I held it. I didn’t crack. The place was roaring. I thought, What would my mom say? I looked at the grand prize, which was a giant jug of shampoo, and said to the lady, ’You know, I suppose I could take that shampoo and rinse out that dirty mouth of yours.’ That’s an example of how to think on your feet in a way that maintains the decorum of the time and is not anachronistic and nasty, because so much humor these days relies on irony and having it be at the expense of the other person. If you look at ‘Lucy,’ it’s a different, more gentle kind of humor and it pays off.”
The Kimmel Center presents “I Love Lucy: Live on Stage” Dec. 26-29 at Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St. For more information or tickets, call 215-790-5800 or visit www.ilovelucylive.com.
