BUS STOP'S HERE
Billy Crudup's transformation from Stoppard's erudite swain to Inge's shit-kickin' cowboy
At the mention of Bus Stop, most brains instantly conjure a vision of a luscious Marilyn Monroe as café singer Cherie in the 1956 film version of William Inge's play. Billy Crudup could change all that. After the February 22 Broadway opening of the play's revival, the reference point may well shift from those celluloid memories of Marilyn to images of Crudup's sexy, animalistic turn as the strapping, simple-minded cowboy Bo.
The mere mention of Billy Crudup's name (pronounced crew-dup) makes normally staunch, competent women slightly tittery. There's no real mystery in this--Crudup is a gentle, slyly sexy man who has palpable char-isma, onstage and off. In Tom Stoppard's heady Arcadia, the 28-year-old actor put a refined, confident spin on the eloquent Septimus Hodge, a character intimidating in his rush of
erudition and intelligence. With self-deprecating humor, Crudup admits it took him a while to grasp the play's content: "I only got it after the 150th
performance." Well, that's a lot better than most.
As for the 180-degree turn to playing a gritty cowboy, the actor is no stranger to ranches, having been raised all over south Florida and Texas, trying to keep up with his parents, who "got married and divorced, then married, then divorced again." Adapting to a volatile home life and attending more than ten schools, Crudup sought attention from his peers. "I was a goofball, a ham, the class clown, which probably explains my need to perform. Hey, audiences are lots bigger than classrooms." His first acting role was in high school, but for the life of him he can't recall the name of the play. "All I can remember is that it eventually became a TV movie with Daniel Travanti and Ed Asner, and it was my first shot at being taken seriously." He checks to see if the play's on his resumé. It isn't, but a "special skills" category stands out: Crudup is proficient at juggling (clubs and balls), rapier combat and empty-handed combat. "Three years in acting school (NYU, MFA program) gives you lots of time," he explains.
Crudup has a lot less time on his hands these days. In the last six months, he has completed two movies--"small roles in big films," he calls them--Sleepers, in which he plays opposite Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt and Jason Patric, and Woody Allen's upcoming musical costarring Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts and Tim Roth. Professing to have an excruciatingly bad singing voice, Crudup was amused that Allen cast him as a warbling "love-stricken sap." He quips, "I feel real comfortable singing, but I can't think of anyone who's going to be comfortable listening to me sing."
Luckily, Inge didn't write a play about a singing cowboy. His Bo is angelic and dangerous at the same time--childlike, uneducated, not yet housebroken, but cocksure nonetheless. Crudup sees Bo as "the most genuine, embraceable, pure character to come out of American playwriting."
The original 1955 Broadway production of Bus Stop--which starred Kim Stanley, Elaine Stritch and Albert Salmi and received rave reviews--had troubled out-of-town tryouts. Producer Robert Whitehead and director Harold Clurman feared they had a flop, but as soon as Salmi was hired to play Bo, Whitehead remembers, "The chemistry between Salmi and Kim Stanley really connected, and the play just took off." Unfortunately, Salmi had a tendency toward violent outbursts, and five years ago killed his wife, then himself. Inge also committed suicide, in 1973, following a life of depression, alcoholism and closeted homosexuality. When reminded of the lurid history behind the play, Crudup sardonically comments, "Well, I have a lot to live up to then, don't I?"
Stepping into Bo's shoes could be problematic for Crudup. Bo is meant to be a massive figure who "pisses all over his terrain." Crudup, though by no means short, is no bruiser. Hinting that cowboy boots could add a couple of inches to his height, Crudup laughs and says, "only two and a quarter, actually." That ought to be enough to make him tower over his current costar, Mary Louise Parker. He brightens when he speaks of Cherie. "She's playing hard to get," says Crudup, "and Bo likes it. For him it's like being a horse, dancing from side to side, as he corrals the cattle." It's a far cry from Septimus Hodge and the intellectual revels of Arcadia, but for Crudup, "It's like comin' home."
