by jon bosworth jaxvillain@yahoo.com
My senior year of high school may have been more filled with Monty Python references than most because I attended Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and drama majors are such cards. One such drama major (albeit several years after my own senior year) did not have this affinity for the humor of England’s favorite comedy troupe, Patrick Heusinger. Although he was a drama major at DA, Patrick remained fairly disinterested in Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail until he was offered a part in the traveling Broadway production.
“When they asked me to audition they told me to go watch the play. When I watched the show, it was really funny. Funnier than I remembered the movie to be. I bought the DVD and watched The Holy Grail until I had every moment memorized. When you do Camelot, they don’t tell you to go rent Camelot, but this is different. This is a musical based on a popular cult movie. The actor needs to know the movie and why the audience is coming to see it. There are certain lines in the film I have to deliver the way the movie does, so people recognize it,” said Heusinger.
In the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail the legendary John Cleese played many characters, including Sir Lancelot, the Knight who says Ni, Tim the Enchanter and several other parts. In the original broadway run, these characters were played by the imitable Hank Azaria. In the traveling production Patrick Heusinger gets to bring these same characters to life.
“I don’t do it anything like Cleese does it or anything like Hank Azaria does it. In the end, these are my own embodiments of these characters, but the audience will still recognize the characters and the scenes. To me, the way I do the Knight who says Ni is totally different from Cleese, but it is definitely identifiable.”
As a graduate of Juliard in New York City, Heusinger is a consummate actor that came to the auditions with plenty of credibility to attain such a major role. He has been in a number of films, television shows, and stage plays since he set out to become a professional actor. But as a graduate of Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, he also has a substantial history on our local stages and the FCCJ Artist Series’ presentation of Spamalot the Musical in the Moran Theatre at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts marks the first time that Heusinger has had the opportunity to return here to perform for his family and hometown friends.
“I am so excited. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to come to Jacksonville again. I graduated on the Moran stage and I performed on that stage when I was at DA. I couldn’t be more thrilled. This is the first time that I’ve been on stage or on the screen in a big way in Jacksonville. Everyone I know is coming to this show. They get to see me play this great and fun role with really talented actors.”
Aside from Stanton and Douglas Anderson productions, Heusinger has also appeared in Shakespeare in the Park, Theatre Jacksonville productions and FCCJ productions, not to mention a great deal of community theatre stages.
“I was in 1776 at the Caser Theatre, which is no longer in existence after Lee Hamby and I did 1776. It was a great time, a bunch of community theater actors getting together and having a blast. Some of them had never done theater before, their wives wanted them out of the house. My best friend, John Rand, was in it. He is now the most produced high school playwright in the country. It was the worst play I was ever in, but a lot of fun.”
Heusinger cut his teeth on what Jacksonville’s small theatrical community had to offer but what’s more is that he cultivated the passion for theater here that led him to Broadway and Hollywood.
“Something happened when I started doing theater where I tried to do as many as I could. Most of them I was just in the background. In Taming of the Shrew I was Guy Holding Palm Frond in the background. By the time I did Orphans and Blood Brothers I was getting good speaking roles.”
Eric Idle, who brought Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Broadway wanted to give musical theater the same treatment that the film gave to movies and make fun of the medium through the medium. So if you hate musicals, this just might be the musical for you. Likewise, if you hate Monty Python humor, this just might be the Monty Python production for you.
“There is something about this musical, everyone gets it. Even people that don’t get Monty Python still get this show. Sometimes it helps people get the movie.”
EU: Are you living in New York or California these days?
Patrick Heusinger: Right now I am based out of New York. I was going to move to LA in January, but the writers strike is still going on and I love doing this play so much. My rep recommended that I stay on tour until June at least. I’ve been here for a year and a couple of months, but the play is so fresh so new. It feels like we’ve only been here for a couple months. Plays like Cats and Phantom, no one’s heart is those productions anymore, it’s just a paycheck, but we’ve managed to be with this tour for a very long time and we all still love this play.
EU: Do you prefer working on film or live on stage?
PH: I love both. I really do. I’ve done movies and plays professionally, but I really do love theater. I love being in front of an audience. I love to do this play in front of audiences. I get to do all these great characters that people know from the movies. Even if you don’t know the movies, you’ll love the characters.
But with film, it’s a completely different animal. There is still the connection to the audience, but it’s more removed. Now you’re working with a crew and you’re truly trying to capture something like it’s happening the first time. In film you try to make something happen and hope that the camera catches it the way it should look.
With the play, you perform it over and over, and you have to make it look new…
EU: Were you part of any local theater productions while you were in Jacksonville?
PH: I wanted to re-do my bio so that it only included Stanton, DA and Jacksonville community theater credits. I did a musical at James Weldon Johnson. I did Annie Get Your Gun at DA. It was so crazy and a lot of fun. I met people I am still good friends with. I went to Stanton and did Me and My Girls and Man from La Mancha and Criminal Anthologies at DA. I did Shakespeare in the Park Taming of the Shrew. I didn’t exactly have lines in that show. I did Mystery of Edwin Drew in Theatre Jax.
Then Orphans. I did Blood Brothers at FCCJ, which was a college performance and I was only in high school. It is a musical about two brothers that were separated at birth. It was more of a play with music. My junior year I got the role of being one of the brothers in this show. The people that put that on were so passionate about it. They could’ve seen the production as trivial, but their passion made it really magical. Orphans was really the most magical play. That was when we realized we were meant to do something better.
EU: How was DA and the small theater community in Jax a good launching place for Juliard and your professional career?
PH: High school was fun. Honestly, you don’t go to school to develop a love for the art. In Jacksonville I developed this intense, passionate love for theater. It’s a deep love, like religion or love or baseball. I love baseball, but I won’t get to do that the way I can do this. That is where I learned to be unselfish in theatre. Where I learned to put the play before the actor.
When I went to New York and went to school, I didn’t find that most people shared those beliefs. That’s scary. When it’s something that is religious to you and you’re passionate about and you have this “we are family” element to telling the story, that gets messed up when one person thinks it’s about them.
But once I graduated from school, I found myself repeatedly being cast in plays and movies where directors shared that unselfish quality of theater; where it’s about the story before the actor. Every time I get cast in something, I am fortunate to be with actors that are lifting something above themselves.
EU: Have any of the original Monty Python members seen you in Spamalot?
PH: I’ve met Eric Idle many times. He’s come to see the show many times. I haven’t met Cleese, although he has come to several of the performances. But his voice is with us every night as The Voice of God.
EU: What is your favorite scene?
PH: It changes. My favorite scene used to be the French taunter scene, and it still is. I have a lot of fun scenes, but the French taunter always gets everyone laughing. The beginning of the scene is just wordplay, but it has physical comedy, so if you don’t get them with the words, that is the chance to make the rest of them laugh. Then there is a part that is all about subtle timing.
You have to have a comedian inside you. We are in these roles because we have good timing or we’re silly. It’s one thing to be a funny actor and have a good sense of humor and another to have a good sense of comedy and another still to be a comedic actor with a good sense of humor, good timing, and then the Python sensibility. All of that together is what makes a really good character. It’s hard. You have to walk a fine line and you have to be cautious and careful. There are over-the-top characters, but you can’t play them like a clown, you have to play them like a person. When the characters become cartoonish you start to stray away from what Monty Python comedy is all about.
I like to play a game with myself, during the scene where Lancelot forgets the word, I try to come up with why he forgot the word today. And like the old SNL schtick, we try to make each other crack up.
EU: Were you nervous when you first performed the part and you knew Eric Idle was in the audience?
PH: I was freaking out I was so scared. He and Mike Nichols were both watching the show, as were the producers, and my heart was bumping. I delivered my first line of the show, which always gets a big laugh, but when I delivered the line that night it was total silence. By the time my second line came out, the laughs started and everything was fine.
I bring a lot to the role, I do a lot of stuff that wasn’t in the movie, I’m the youngest guy to play this character, so I was bringing a lot of sensibilities that I got from Will Ferrel and my comedy upbringing, which was In Living Color before SNL. I hadn’t done dialogue comedy before on stage.
But Eric is so funny. There is one moment in the Tim the Enchanter scene where the funny line would land and the audience exploded with laughter. I added a little something to it to make it even crazier, but Mike [Nichols] thought it was too much and gave me a note. Eric Idle was standing behind Mike telling me it’s perfect and not to change a thing. It was so surreal. And it happens a lot. Eric comes in and tells me to keep doing something and later the associate director comes in and says “What was that?” You just hold onto whatever was said last.
Catch Spamalot February 19-24th at the Moran Theatre in the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts or you risk the possibility of missing Patrick Heusinger’s performance in this show forever, as well as his fellow passionate cast members.
“The vibe of the show is very honest and beautiful. Christopher Gurr, who plays King Arthur, he is one of those actors that you could watch every night and learn from. He’s specific, subtle, smart and selfless. He takes on the art of acting from a very pure angle. He is the embodiment of pure acting. Like a politician that really is doing something for the people, not pandering, not responding to lobbies. He is an artist. A pure actor. He doesn’t just go out and do the dance, he brings the love of the game every night. And he’s a great guy to boot.”
Call (904) 632-3373 or visit artistseries.fccj.org for tickets or more information.
Article Published in the 2-14-08 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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