NEW YORK -- Patrick Stewart, the star of Arthur Miller's new drama on Broadway, "The Ride Down Mount Morgan," stunned audiences at curtain calls on Saturday -- and Broadway circles in general -- by angrily denouncing the producers, including the Shubert Organization, for what he called a failure to promote the show.
The complaint, endorsed by Miller in an interview Sunday but disputed by a Shubert official and the show's chief publicist, was regarded by Broadway aficionados as highly unusual, especially because the show, which opened three weeks ago, has enjoyed generally good reviews and has done well at the box office.Apparently encouraged by audiences that wildly applauded his accusations on Saturday and by articles in The Daily News and The New York Post Sunday, Stewart said he would restate his criticisms at the Sunday matinee. But the curtain came down and bows were taken without a repetition Sunday, and it was unclear Sunday night if some compromise with the producers had been reached.
"The Ride Down Mount Morgan" is the story of a self-justifying bigamist whose effort to keep his two families ignorant of each other collapses when he has a car crash and both his wives show up at the hospital. It opened in London in 1991, was revived off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 1998 and opened at the Ambassador Theater on West 49th Street on April 9 to run through July 23.
A strange open fight between the star and the producers of a Broadway show over publicity had seemed all but inevitable on Saturday, when Stewart, 59, a Briton known on stage and in television's "Star Trek: The Next Generation," shocked his matinee and evening audiences with his curtain statement.
"Arthur Miller and I no longer have confidence in our producers' commitment to this production, especially the Shubert Organization, or their willingness to promote and publicize it," Stewart declared in an apparently prepared statement.
Still in costume, a grayish wig over his famous bald pate, he said he found the promotion shortcomings of the producers "deeply puzzling, if for no other reason than this is an important play by America's most distinguished living playwright," and added, "Arthur and I feel frustrated and helpless."
In later interviews, Stewart said he had made his frustrations public only reluctantly and on behalf of a hard-working cast in a show that he said was not being adequately promoted, even as publicity campaigns for other shows were being stepped up with the approach of Tony nominations next month.
Reached at his Connecticut home Sunday, Miller echoed Stewart's complaint. "Clearly the play has dropped through the memory hole," he said. "I haven't talked to management, but Patrick has, since he's there for every performance. Promises have been made repeatedly that were never kept. Patrick feels he was driven to this. I told him I agreed with his statement."
Miller, 85, the author of "Death of a Salesman" and many other hits, said that promotion and publicity were usually not detailed in contracts for a play. "It's just customary," he said of such promotions. "I've never run into this before, and I don't now why it is. They're taking in lots of money. The show is doing well. They sell out almost every performance."
Apparently taken aback by the accusations, the president of the Shubert Organization, Philip Smith, issued a statement disputing the claims of lagging commitment, but he did not detail the producers' promotional efforts and he did not go out of his way to pick a fight.
"The producers' commitment to 'The Ride Down Mount Morgan' could not be stronger," Smith said. "To have Patrick Stewart star on Broadway in an Arthur Miller play is a producer's dream come true. All of us are looking forward to the continued success of this play."
Michael Hartman, the chief publicist for the production, also declined to detail the extent of promotion. But he said that more money had been spent to advertise "Mount Morgan" than on two comparable plays last season -- "The Blue Room," with Nicole Kidman, and "Amy's View," with Dame Judi Dench. He said they were comparable because they, too, had limited runs and mostly the same producers.
Moreover, he said, "Mount Morgan" was the only straight play to have had television advertising this season, and he noted that Stewart had received considerable publicity in print and in television talk show appearances. And he said more publicity would be forthcoming.
While it was unclear how much promotion the play had received, there was little doubt it was doing well at the box office. Variety, the show business journal, reported that 88 percent to 90 percent of the Ambassador's 1,109 seats had been filled in recent weeks and that net receipts in the week of April 10 to 16 were more than 61 percent of the theater's $506,000 potential.