'Liberace!' reveals the man behind the grand at Phoenix Theatre
How did Liberace not set off America’s gaydar?
Easy answer: He came to fame in the 1950s, and America, or at least middle America, had no gaydar. But the famously flamboyant piano man also fiercely defended his hetero bona fides, even suing a London newspaper for libel when it implied he was gay. So even at his death in 1987, it came as a shock to millions that the larger-than-life performer they knew from “The Tonight Show” had had AIDS.
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The double life of the entertainer born Wladziu Valentino Liberace will be the subject of a bio-play at Phoenix Theatre titled “Liberace!” Written by Brent Hazelton, the production will star Jeff Kennedy, a longtime music director and accompanist making a rare foray onto center stage.
“To be judged on doing an impersonation of Liberace didn’t interest me on any level,” Kennedy says. “But because the play is written, it’s somebody who’s already lived his life, and he’s come back in this very unique circumstance to in a sense narrate his life and to tell the important moments. And yet there’s a fresh emotional aspect to it. …
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“Other than the coroner who went and did the fast investigation with his body before it was interred announcing to the world he had AIDS, everything else has been pretty much conjecture from that point, including the ‘Behind the Candelabra' movie, which I thought was very well done, but it’s Scott’s point of view, who he was with, and that’s a very specific point of view. For somebody who experienced something of a double life and then gets this opportunity that he didn’t have in his real life to explain himself, that interested me a lot.”
Kennedy, an interdisciplinary arts professor at Arizona State University, has had a long career behind the scenes in show business. He started performing in churches in Southern California and toured with gospel groups in the 1970s and ’80s, co-writing songs with Bill and Gloria Gaither. He once served as a production assistant for Stephen Sondheim.
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Here in Arizona, he did a stint as musical director for Arizona Broadway Theatre and leads an annual Christmas cabaret for iTheatre Collaborative. Last year, he portrayed Judy Garland’s accompanist in the searing play-with-music “The End of the Rainbow,” also at Phoenix Theatre.
Playing Liberace is his biggest acting challenge yet, Kennedy says, but it’s also a musical one.
“There are certain things I do very well, but he could do pretty much anything technically on the piano,” he says. “Now, as an expressive (musician), I don’t know. In fact I heard Phyllis Diller, who was a concert pianist — and they were very close friends — say no, he wasn’t the world’s greatest pianist. Technically, he could do anything he wanted, but he made this decision. He was going to play ragtimes and boogie-woogies and popular songs, and so he didn’t worry about the technique. He worried about the entertainment value. …
“The education for me doing this is to find out that there were many periods. And in fact, after he got so bugged by the critics, at one point he got a buzz cut and went and wore brown suits and played nothing but classical music, and he tanked completely. And he wasn’t having fun. But there was a period he wanted that. And then after he was almost broke in the late ’50s and early ’60s, he reinvented himself, and by the ’80s he was the highest-paid entertainer in the world. And the over-the-topness was some because he said, ‘OK, I’ll play with the critics.’ And then everyone in Vegas copied him, from Elvis to Elton John. He was the first to wear the costumes and all the bling. All of that comes from Liberace. But he makes this definite decision, and I was so surprised to realize that’s what it was. That, no, I’m not an artist, I’m an entertainer. By choice.”
Reach the reporter at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896. Follow him at facebook.com/LengelOnTheater and twitter.com/KerryLengel.
Phoenix Theatre: ‘Liberace!’
When: Wednesday, Sept. 21, through Sunday, Oct. 9.
Where: Phoenix Theatre, 100 E. McDowell Road.
Admission: $30-$60 (subject to demand pricing).
Details: 602-254-2151, phoenixtheatre.com.
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