More about Streep Tease
February 25th, 2010’Streep Tease’ :: Meryl’s words in men’s voices
by Jim Halterman
EDGE Contributor
Wednesday Feb 24, 2010
Picture the climactic scene from the 1994 Meryl Streep-Kevin Bacon film The River Wild where Streep’s valiant mother must fight off bad guy Bacon while going down a treacherous path in an out-of-control river. Now, picture a group of men playing all the roles on a stage with oars, spray bottles (for proper raging rapid simulation) and a bit of overly dramatic acting and you essentially have the core of Streep Tease: An Evening of Meryl Streep Monologues Performed by an All-Male Cast.
In Streep Tease, running through next Saturday at the bang Comedy Theater in Los Angeles, monologues from such Streep classics as Sophie’s Choice, Out of Africa, Death Becomes Her and The Devil Wears Prada are performed in both comedic and dramatic tones by a group of men.
Created and produced by stand-up comic/actor Roy Cruz, Streep Tease has been a big success in the LA market and has already seen their original run extended and there’s also hope that the future holds performances in other cities around the country. Besides Cruz, familiar comedian/actors such as David Dean Bottrell (Boston Legal) and Taylor Negron (The Aristocrats) take turns with their favorite Streep character and monologue.
So why Meryl Streep? Why have a group of men do the monologues? And has Ms. Streep taken time out from her busy schedule to see the show? EDGE’s Jim Halterman posed these questions to Cruz last week and found out the origins of the show and why Cruz thinks fans are responding so favorably.
Why not Meryl Streep monologues?
EDGE: Obviously Meryl Streep was a huge inspiration for the show but what made you put a show together about her and her career?
Roy Cruz: Well, I’m also a stand-up comedian and I love The Devil Wears Prada and I do this impersonation of the speech in the office with the sweater and you know how you have a joke that is really reliable and always works? That one always works. I kept doing it and someone said ’Why don’t you do a show where you impersonate different characters?’ I just sat on that idea and then I thought ’Why don’t we do all Meryl Streep monologues but the twist is all men?’ I was just half-joking about the idea but it kind of resonated with a lot of people because why are we fascinated with a particular woman or actress? When I was growing up, I was fascinated with Gena Rowlands in Gloria.
EDGE: How did you go about picking the monologues?
RC: I would say that the appeal of the show and how the show was created was that I invited these actors that I know and asked ’What is your favorite Meryl Streep character?’ I kind of gave them that opportunity to bring whatever they wanted and we’ll explore that. I think each of them have their own favorite Meryl Streep movie or character.
All for laughs?
EDGE: Are the monologues all for laughs or are there some that are purely dramatic?
RC: Some, like Sophie’s Choice (which is performed by Negron), you can’t really make fun of it. We’re not really doing straight parody but it’s more interpretation with how we’re fascinated with her. And when a man does a woman’s character it just starts out as funny. It’s tricky and it’s hard to make a parody out of it but overall the scenes are comedic.
EDGE: How did your director, Ezra Weisz, approach shaping the piece into the show we see now?
RC: Initially, there was no direction. We just did it more like an open mic. Ezra is the director of the Bang Theater Improv Conservatory and I’d worked with him and know him. Ezra did a lot of enhancing and giving us choices in acting and making it more theatrical.
EDGE: Is there any issue with the rights of the monologues being used in the show?
RC: In my research, it falls under parody, which is still okay. I’ve also asked other people who have done this type of show. We’re doing parody and if you think about shows like Saturday Night Live or doing impersonations and they get away with it.
EDGE: Has Ms. Streep been to the show yet?
RC: She hasn’t and I don’t know if she knows about it. Her publicist was informed but I haven’t heard anything. The show had a feature in Daily Variety so I’m sure at least one or two people read that and someone knows about it.
[Halterman inquired with Streep’s publicist for a quote for this piece and was told that Ms. Streep is not available.]
RC: It’s a scary thing. I’m sure she has a sense of humor but how will she take it? It’s a fun show and we’re not there to…we’re giving tribute and between each number we honor the writer, honor the director and do little things like that. It’s really an homage.
EDGE: Audiences are clearly responding since you’ve expanded your run. Are you planning on taking Streep Tease to other cities?
RC: That’s our goal and there are some thoughts. I’ve gotten calls from people who are observing the progress of the show and nothing is final yet but it would be great to take it to San Francisco or New York. To do a small production like this and then go to New York would be a great idea! We’re working on it.
Streep Tease runs this Saturday at Los Angeles’s bang Comedy Theater (457 North Fairfax Avenue) with shows at 8pm and 10pm and then on March 6th at 8pm. You can find out more at www.streeptease.net.
Jim Halterman lives in Los Angeles and also covers the television scene for www.FutonCritic.com, Progressive Television and, of course, www.jimhalterman.com. He can also be found on Twitter, Virb and Facebook.
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EDGE Publications, Inc. / All Rights Reserved
Streep Tease
February 25th, 2010 
Meryl Streep may be the most accomplished actress of our time. And now an obsessed comedy troupe–of men!—is reimagining her greatest moments on stage.
Miranda Priestley berating her magazine underlings in The Devil Wears Prada. Karen Blixen soaring high in Out of Africa. Gail Hartman pummeling a gun-wielding criminal in The River Wild.
Those cinematic moments are the basis of Streep Tease, a collection of monologues from Meryl Streep’s films, which is currently being performed by eight men at Bang, a West Hollywood theater and improv studio.
Yes, men.
The production, the brainchild of Filipino-born comedian Roy Cruz, celebrates Streep’s most dynamic moments even as it offers a somewhat subversive take on some of her best-known work by recasting the celebrated actress with eight comedic actors. But it’s not a drag show, Cruz is quick to point out.
“I never thought of it as a drag show because it is Meryl Streep,” said Cruz emphatically. “You can camp it up but… you’d water down the tribute if you did it in drag… When the actors asked me, what are we going to wear? I said, 80 percent black and 20 percent Meryl Streep. Add whatever it is, a scarf, a wig, whatever, but I don’t want it to be drag.”
Roy Cruz, the man behind the show, said, “When the actors asked me, what are we going to wear? I said, 80 percent black and 20 percent Meryl Streep.”
The concept for Streep Tease, which is playing to sold-out audiences roughly once a month (with a performance planned for tomorrow evening and another on November 14), was an outgrowth of Cruz’s own stand-up comedy act, where he regularly performs a monologue from The Devil Wears Prada—the one where Streep’s Miranda details the trickle-down effect of the color cerulean from designers to a Casual Corner clearance bin. “It’s so funny and the way she delivers it is so slow and with such an iciness to it,” said Cruz of the piece, which opens up the production.
Cruz recruited several other actors, including Lovespring International’s Sam Pancake, Boston Legal’s David Dean Bottrell, and stand-up comedian/The Aristocrats scene-stealer Taylor Negron, and allowed them to choose their own monologues from some of Streep’s best-known work; the pieces therefore reflect some personal connection the actor feels for the movie. The films represented run the gamut from the comedic (The Devil Wears Prada, Death Becomes Her) to the serious (Sophie’s Choice, Out of Africa), with the high camp of thriller The River Wild thrown in for good measure.
“Taylor Negron, when I asked him to do it, he just started reciting a Sophie’s Choice monologue,” recalled Cruz. “And then Sam Pancake, when I told him about the show, he said, ‘Oh, I know Postcards From the Edge, I watch it every year on my birthday.’ It’s just fascinating to me how all of the actors responded to the concept.”
Cruz gave the Streep Tease actors the freedom not only to select their monologues but to direct them as well. “There’s no director in this show,” he said. “There’s me as the producer but I’m really more of a facilitator… It’s more like an open mic. You just show up and do your thing.”
The effect is akin to an acting showcase, with some of the pieces delivered as unadorned performance while others took liberties with the format. Bottrell, who selected Out of Africa due to his love of Danish accents, conflates the plot of the entire feature film into six side-splitting minutes, with props, on-stage deaths, and what might just be the very best flight simulation ever to appear behind the proscenium arch. (Using nothing but chairs to represent a single-propeller plane and the actors’ arms as wings, the illusion is completed by stuffed birds being dangled from a stick up above.)
Mike Rose transforms the climactic showdown in The River Wild between Streep’s Gail and the evil criminals, led by Kevin Bacon, who take her family hostage on a rafting vacation—during which they force her to navigate their raft into some dangerous rapids—into a comedic action sequence, involving water bottles spritzing the air to simulate the churning river and pink fly swatters standing in for oars.
Meanwhile, Pancake channels both Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine in his scene, which depicts the mother-daughter staircase confrontation scene. Others still are more straightforward, such as Negron’s affecting monologue from Sophie’s Choice or Trent Walker’s plutonium-contaminated Silkwood piece.
But at the heart of all of the pieces, of course, is Streep herself hovering over the action. “Being a gay man, there’s always a fascination with an actress,” explained Cruz. “Classic would be Bette Davis. I remember growing up and loving Gena Rowlands with that line from Gloria, ‘Go ahead, punk.’ Why am I fascinated with Meryl Streep? If I were an actress, I’d want to have her opportunities, her talent, so I could play these wonderful characters.”
Cruz described Streep Tease as still being a work in progress, a workshopped piece that could change and grow over the next few months due to the inquires he’s received about making the production bigger. He’d also like to explore some lesser-known pieces from the Streep oeuvre, such as her 1984 World War II film Plenty, should the production’s run continue.
Streep or her representatives haven’t been in touch with Cruz about the show. (Streep’s publicist, Leslee Dart, had no knowledge of Streep Tease when contacted by The Daily Beast.) Still, Cruz insists that despite the humor, the production is very much a tribute to Streep, and he would love for her to see it someday.
But then again, maybe not. Cruz said, “If Meryl Streep shows up, we’d have to cancel the show. Can you imagine?”
Faced with the Sophie’s Choice-like dilemma of choosing his own favorite Streep film, Cruz admitted that he does have one. “It’s Still of the Night with Roy Scheider,” he said. “That’s my favorite. I think it was the first full-length Meryl Streep film that I saw. I even remember I was about 15 and I was learning how to smoke and she was smoking in that movie.”
Cruz paused before chuckling. “There are so many Meryl Streep movies.”
Jace Lacob is the writer/editor of Televisionary, a website devoted to television news, criticism, and interviews. Jace resides in Los Angeles. He is a contributor to several entertainment Web sites and can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Streep Tease
February 25th, 2010Streep Tease: An Evening Of Meryl Streep Monologues, created by Roy Cruz.
Performed by an All-Male Cast, is a group of eight actors recreating scenes
from the most unforgettable movies of one of the greatest actresses of
all-time Meryl Streep. The show aims to explore this all-male cast’s
fascination with the brilliant actress and the brilliant movies that she
has starred in. The show is a combination of drama and comedy.
Some scenes are comedic (i.e. The Devil Wears Prada), some
are dramatic (i.e. Sophie’s Choice) and some are accidentally
campy (i.e. Out of Africa, The River Wild). Streep Tease has
been playing to sold out audiences at the bang Improv
Theater in Los Angeles. It has been featured in the
Daily Variety, The Daily Beast.org and
The Guardian UK.
Let the GAMES Begin!
February 15th, 2010
Our salute to the Games of the XXI Winter Olympiad!
BULLOCK & STREEP TRADE INSULTS IN FIGHT FOR AWARDS
February 3rd, 2010SANDRA BULLOCK is hoping to put MERYL STREEP off her winning streak during this year’s (10) awards season - by leaving threatening messages on the acting legend’s voicemail.
The pair had to share the Best Actress prize at last month’s (Jan10) Critics’ Choice Awards, after the committee couldn’t choose between them.
Following their Best Actress nominations at the upcoming Oscars, Bullock intends to increase the rivalry between the pair - with some good-natured insults.
She tells the Associated Press, “With Meryl, when this whole thing started, I left her a voicemail going, ‘You’ve got to watch your back. I’m gonna cut you. I’m gonna take you down.’
“And then she sent me dead orchids and told me to die, so I sent her a case of liquor and told her to toast to white trash.”
But the Speed actress insists the battle for honours actually pulls screen stars together: “No one, at least the people that I’ve met, no one cares about the end result or the statue. It’s being able to sit in close proximity with these ladies… and we have to go through this whole rigamarole and we just all look at each other and we get to know each other and you laugh at the absurdity of it all and how they pit women up against each other.”
Meryl nominated for another Oscar!
February 3rd, 2010Meryl Streep got nominated for the Academy Award as best actress for her performance as a leading actress in “Julie & Julia”.
With her 16 nominations she holds the record for the most Oscar nominations of any actor.
With 25 nominations she also holds the record for the most Golden Globe Award nominations.
Kate Mulgrew in Europe
February 1st, 2010This May Kate Mulgrew will be attending two conventions in Europe.
The STICCON in Bellaria, Italy: 20. - 23. May 2010
http://www.stic.it/eventi/STICCON/sticcon.html
and Collectormania 16 in Milton Keynes, England: May 28-31, 2010
http://www.collectormania.com/eventdetails.html
For further information look at the links above as well as http://www.totallykate.com/ and of course there’s also more information about Kate in our ‘Kate Current Events’ thread, so come on in and have a look.
Congratulations, Meryl!
January 22nd, 2010Meryl Streep won AfterEllen’s first Annual Lesbian/Bi People’s Choice Awards in the category of Favorite Female Movie Star.
amfAR New York Gala 2010
January 18th, 2010amfAR New York Gala 2010
to benefit amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research
DATE
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
LOCATION
Cipriani 42nd Street, New York City
Presented by Mathilde Krim, Ph.D., Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep
For more information come on in and have a look at the ‘Current Events’ thread in the Meryl Streep section.