34 ju st out • September 1. 2000
On the road
again
If it’s Tuesday,
this must be Portland
by
M arc A c ito
ou’ve worked all day. You fight traffic to
get to the theater on time. You open up
your program for the latest Broadway
touring production and you think, “What
a life these actors must have.” Think again.
1 recently got the lowdown from out actor
Jim Corti, one of the stars of the national tour
of Ragtime, which opens Sept. 5 at Keller (for
merly Civic) Auditorium.
A musical adaptation of the novel by E.L.
Doctorow, Ragtime paints a panoramic portrait
of three New York families— one Jewish immi
grant, one upper-class W ASP and one African
American— in the early 1900s. As the families
embark on personal voyages of self-discovery,
their lives become dramatically entwined with
one another and with real-life historical char
acters including Henry Ford, Harry Houdini,
J.P. Morgan and Booker T. Washington.
Corti originated the role of Houdini on
Broadway but for the past year has toured the
United States playing the principal role of Jew
ish immigrant Tateh. I caught up with him by
phone from San Diego.
“I actually prefer the touring production to
the Broadway one,” he says, explaining that
financial considerations forced the original cre
ative team to focus less on the “eye candy” of
elaborate sets and concentrate more on making
the production character-driven. “The emo
tional reaction is consistent across the country;
this story speaks to people in a profound way.”
Corti’s own story is the kind every gay hoy
who starred in his high school musical pins false
hopes on. His first gig after graduating with a
theater degree from Loyola University in the
early 1970s was with the prestigious American
Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
Shortly thereafter, he moved to New York,
hut instead of languishing in the usual Actor’s
Purgatory of waitering, he landed a role in the
original cast of Hal Prince’s hit revival of Can-
dide. Since then, he has worked steadily and has
perfonned in the national tours of A Chorus
Line, Boh Fosse’s Dancin’ and the ’80s revival of
Cabaret with Joel Grey.
“I’m having the experience
of my life,” Corti says. “This is
the kind of rich role any actor
hopes to play.”
Indeed, Corti says he and
the entire cast of Ragtime feel
grateful to portray such complex
characters. (As opposed to, let’s
say, a dancing chafing dish in
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.)
Corti also expresses grati
tude that being open about his
sexuality has not hindered get
ting work. Because he special
izes in character roles rather
than romantic leading men, he
never has experienced discrim
ination in an industry that rou
tinely insists gay actors closet
themselves.
Watching it happen to oth
ers has made him sympathetic.
“I would never judge an actor
who feels he needs to play the
game.”
If it’s Tuesday, this must be
St. Louis is the story of Corti’s
Y
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4
WILLAMETTE
WEEK
Jim Corti, looking for a Laundromat
life on the road. He might not have been a
waiter, but as an actor on tour, he spends a lot
of time waiting: waiting for the plane to take off
or waiting for the bus trip to end.
Although the show occasionally “sits” for a
few weeks in a major city, much of the tour is
made up of one-weekers— and not always in a
geographically sensible way: Miami, Cleveland,
Atlanta might be the schedule.
Each cast, crew and orchestra member— more
than 50 altogether— must fit an entire wardrobe
suitable for all seasons and climates into just two
suitcases and two carry-on hags, which forces the
gay boys to make the torturous decision whether
to commit to black shoes and belt or brown.
Necessity has forced Corti to develop a sort of
Rumpled Actor Chic, if you will.
“You have to invent a way of styling your
self. In the end, you just reconcile yourself with
saying, ‘This is me, I’m an actor, I just pulled
this outfit out of a suitcase, nice to meet ya,’ ”
he laughs. “After all, it’s only the people you
work with who actually see that you’re wearing
the same clothes over and over.”
Corti’s typical day mostly involves the relent
less pursuit of Laundromats, drug stores and gal
lon jugs of bottled water. He tries to take in the
sights, but most of his time is spent resting up for
the demands of performing eight shows a week.
And if maintaining a relationship while on
tour is hard, then finding one is next to impossi
ble. Corti, who is single, admits he’s made sacri
fices to pursue his life’s work:
“Most guys my age have a lot
more stability...my heart is
heavy sometimes that I don’t
have that.”
But he realizes the instabili
ty of the actor’s life— not just
the touring but constantly em
barking on the emotional jour
ney of being someone else—
has come to feel stable to him.
1 can hear him smiling over the
phone as he says, “Y’know, I
feel very blessed that this is
what life has shown me.”
I Portland Opera presents RAG
TIME as part o f its Best o f Broad
way series Sept. 5 through 10 at
Keller Auditorium, 222 S.W . Clay
St. in Portland. Tickets start
at $20 from the box office,
(503) 241-1802, or Ticketmaster.
M arc A cito used to tour as
a professional opera singer. He
now owns brown shoes and belts
as well as black on es.