Fear and Loathing on Broadway

Mort Sahl gazed out of his Ritz-Carlton Hotel room. Unlike Paris, New York could never claim itself a beneficiary of magnanimous light. And despite the almost mystical tufts of green that gently carried the eye north over the tree-lined expanse of Central Park, a flat autumnal bleakness washed into the room, highlighting the shadows of tension in his face.

“I’m so disjointed, I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said. He picked up a wad of telephone messages and let them drop on his desk. He shuffled aimlessly through a press packet that listed his interview schedule.

The countdown to his solo Broadway debut was, if you consider its beginning more than 30 years ago, deep into its 11th hour. Nine days away, to be exact. But nothing seemed further from his mind. He was feeling no premonition of the critical triumph that was actually to come, not even a frisson of what it means to be, for as long as one is alone on a Broadway stage, one of the heavyweight kings of American culture. His reviews would be glowing (though attendance for the show, which ends today, would be described as “moderate”). He would be in demand by every talk and interview show in the city. He would take daily calls from his agents hot for a London run, a TV special, a new book.

But all of that seemed inconceivable on this September day. Midway through a media schedule that called for more than 20 interviews in two weeks, he was peevish and drained. New York’s relentless assault on the nerves was more than enough to put anyone on edge (“This city is knee-deep in psychosis,” observed his friend, NBC correspondent John Hart).

Sahl possesses one of our most brilliant comedic minds and virtually single-handedly defined political satire for a generation of Americans. But the country, and its notions of celebrity, had changed around him. The true iconoclast never makes a media pet. Sahl’s complications, his turmoil, his anger and his obsessions (particularly with the conspiracy theory surrounding John Kennedy’s assassination) were for real. Under the veneer of the anarchic joker beat the heart of a moralist. Over the years, that had been hard for a lot of people to take. He saw a lot of cold shoulders turned his way.

Now, at 60, he was feeling himself a stranger in a strange land. He couldn’t relate to the stream of young reporters who filed into the Jockey Club downstairs with questions culled from 25-year-old clips. In many of their faces he saw himself mirrored as some kind of Abominable Snowman of American Comedy shaking off a quarter century of hoarfrost as he shuffled toward Broadway’s lights.

He felt that the Nederlander organization, which was producing the show, had gotten him a little on the cheap--he claims that at first he was offered no per diem for his pre-opening stay, and no hotel accommodation. He didn’t know where he’d be living. He grieved over the publicity strategy. He didn’t like the plan for the set design. His agent’s brother had shot the TV ad for the show, and Sahl and the Nederlanders agreed that the job had been botched. “I look like an astronaut in space floating in front of the black hole,” he said.

He couldn’t figure why the critics were being allowed to show up at his previews while he was still honing his material. Already the opening night party was shaping up to be considerably less than the gala he had hoped for. Invitations hadn’t even been mailed yet, the site hadn’t been determined, and already some guests--such as the Reagans--had to be ruled out. Sahl could feel that showdown with the producers was inevitable.

Chalk some of this high anxiety up to pre-opening jitters. This wasn’t just another opening, another show. This was Broadway, and this was vindication. Deep inside him there was a small lump of indigestible misgiving that sent up a tiny acid message: He was an American institution, one of the great comedians. And he was getting no respect.

The Fouled-Up Tale of the Tape

Most comedians usually hang out around other comedians. Sahl prefers the company of journalists; they offer more of a plug into the topical energies that charge his act. He was getting little feedback this time out, however. This generation of New Journalists was turning out to be less than a notable bunch.

There was, for example, the interview he’d just concluded with a stringer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, a benign young man who had conducted an earlier interview that lasted nearly five hours--all of which was lost when the tape recorder turned up faulty. He came back with an apology and a new microcassette recorder, and they tried again in the back room of the Jockey Club.

Sahl was resentful that the reporter was fixed on discussing his career during the ‘60s (“That was 20 years ago. You’re asking me to be both detective and corpse”).

“If you’re any good you should always try to make your art a growth situation,” he told the reporter. “Playing it safe is never playing it safe.”

The reporter, not one to mince words, asked Sahl about his “comeback out of the center of oblivion.”

“The assassination involvement did put a spin on my career,” Sahl conceded. “But if you can get through the night, you’re better.”

Then he grew impatient. “Look, isn’t it incumbent that you talk about your time? I could tell innocuous jokes, but we don’t have Kennedy anymore and this is not the country he conceived of. I’m not an anesthetist. I don’t put people to sleep so someone else can pull the gold out of their teeth.”

The subject switched to movies, for which Sahl has been writing for a number of years. “The new directors, those film school guys with the beards, think lack of spontaneity implies direction. A movie like ‘Sweet Lorraine’ is characteristic. It’s about nice people. But movies now are an abdication by the adults. People are pulling in the horns of their feelings. A man who knows what he believes can afford a sense of equity. It’s when he doesn’t that he won’t give anything. That’s why our movies now are so empty.”

The reporter inquired, “Were you ever in analysis?”

“Do I look it?” Sahl returned. “If I were, I’d ask for my money back. Isn’t art about making us a little less lonely? I used to think I was making lonely people in the audience feel like they weren’t crazy. Now it’s to make me feel less lonely. That’s what it’s all about. Everybody’s lonely.”

The reporter thanked Sahl.

Then he tapped the microcassette cover open and saw the tape erupt like a party streamer, becoming instantly ensnarled. He borrowed a nail file and spent the next 45 minutes rewinding the tape while Sahl sat over a cup of coffee, sipping in quiet indignation.

The Producer’s Strategy

The incident may not have been altogether typical, but it was symptomatic. Arthur Rubin, vice president and general manager of the Nederlander Organization, which was presenting Sahl at the Neil Simon Theatre, had instructed press agent Jeffrey Richards to “beat the bushes” in getting Sahl maximum media exposure.

“I didn’t think New York knew Sahl,” he said after the show had opened. “We’re talking 30 years later. My concern was to get as much space in the papers as we could to explain who he was and what he does. We tried to avoid anything controversial, or anything that’d turn people off from seeing him. We wanted to present him in his best light.”

Which meant that what Sahl had to haul up for the New York Times, the Associated Press, People and the Christian Science Monitor also had to be given to the New Jersey Dispatch, the Stamford Advocate, Jewish Week and the Bridgeport Post Telegram. Less than halfway through the schedule, his energies were seriously flagging.

Seeking a Friendly Voice

He turned on the TV. “Let’s see what CNN says about (William) Casey,” he said. The television reporter intoned, “Secretary of Defense Weinberger says he doesn’t want Egyptian forces involved in the Persian Gulf.” Sahl chortled, “I guess he plans on winning.” A news story showed the tearful withdrawal of Pat Schroeder from the presidential race. “No money,” Sahl said, rubbing his thumb and first two fingers together in the classic reference to the lubricity of cash. “This is why the networks are finished,” he said, looking at the screen and watching Schroeder make her emotional announcement. “They won’t get this until 7:30.”

He stood up with restless uncertainty, trying to decide what to do until his next interview, which was with the Stamford Advocate at 4 o’clock.

Of the interview he’d just concluded, he said, “I give him Nancy (Reagan), (Alexander) Haig, (Clint) Eastwood, but he doesn’t want that. He wants to write about why I didn’t work during the assassination.

Back to CNN. “War’d be the best thing. (George) Bush’d get elected and the revisionists would say there was never any cooperation between the superpowers.” He turned off the TV. “The liberals,” he scoffed. He recalled an HBO movie. “Here’s Jimmy Stewart and Bette Davis. They’re an old couple living on fixed incomes and want to commit suicide. That’s the liberals’ view: Life is a bowl of mud. When Ed Asner said to me about Whoopi Goldberg’s pregnant unwed Valley Girl, ‘We really need to face it.’ Come on!” He smirked at the thought of Asner’s laborious earnestness. So many causes, so little effect.

He telephoned John Hart to hear a friendly voice. Sahl had flown to Oregon over the weekend for a one-night concert in Portland, where he once again found the press aloof and suspicious. “The guy on the Oregonian wrote, ‘Sahl rarely works, except for opening on Broadway.’ I love that quote.” I know where he’s coming from,” Sahl said to Hart. “He said, ‘When you pick up Fortune magazine and see what (Bill) Cosby’s making, does that make you bitter?’ I said, ‘What does the American schoolteacher make?’ The press, they still feel superior. When they mock America, it’s not in a spirit of lament.” He signed off, promising to meet with Hart soon.

Nothing Is Going Right

He checked the press list again. Tomorrow there would be the Jewish Week at 11 a.m., followed by Gannett-Westchester Newspapers at 12:30. An hour interview with National Public Radio had been added later in the afternoon. The following day he was scheduled to appear on CBS’s “Nightwatch” in Washington, and he was debating with himself whether he should fly in the night before and rest in a hotel, or grab the 11 a.m. shuttle for the 12:30 taping, as originally planned.

“Jeffrey Richards is intimidated by CBS,” Sahl said, referring to the publicist hired by the Nederlanders. “I told him I wanted a hotel for the night before and he said, ‘(CBS president and chief executive) Larry Tisch is trying to cut back on expenses,’ like we’re supposed to be concerned about keeping CBS’s budget down. I’ve done ‘Nightwatch’ so often, we used to call it ‘Deathwatch.’ I had to tell Richards to call them back. He was surprised they agreed. I had to tell him I have an apprehension I’m being demeaned.”

The tortuousness of that last phrase was indicative of how Sahl, for all his turbulence, abhors face-to-face haggling. The rub about CBS was only the latest irritant to inflame his sense of isolation and his struggle for what he felt should be suitable acknowledgement. According to Rubin, the total budget for presenting Sahl on Broadway topped out at $520,000. But Sahl claims his per diem and hotel expenses (he worked his own deal with the Ritz-Carlton) didn’t come until his wife, China, who acts as his manager, negotiated a $5,000 advance for pre-opening expenses.

Sahl noticed, too, that the budget called for $2,500 for a set while the show’s production roster listed no set designer. Later he was told there’d be a newsstand on stage. “We can’t have that,” he protested. “I don’t want the show to be about a newsstand. Do they want a changemaker on my belt, too?”

He was upset that Richards wasn’t acting on the party list fast enough. The President and Mrs. Reagan had been invited, and, according to Sahl, Nancy Reagan had promised they’d “make a special night of it” if he gave enough advance notice so that the Secret Service could check out the theater for security. The opening night party site hadn’t been determined, even though that, too, had been budgeted.

“I know what that means,” Sahl said. “Richards is trying to work a place for free so that he can impress the producers with his effort to save their money. What’re we supposed to put on the invitation, ‘Site to be Announced’?” He cinched up his tie, put on his suit jacket and went downstairs to taxi to his next interview, which was with National Public Radio.

On the Radio

“So, Mort, what’s happening?” the NPR interviewer, a woman, asked. “Have the times changed?”

“The comedians are establishment now,” Sahl replied. “They’re all making a buck. We’ve all been through Watergate, Iran. We’re all inmates now.

“The liberals are right of center, the conservatives are right of Right. What happened to the Left? They discovered the opposition was serious. The killing of their leaders stopped the movement. They found out at Berkeley that it wasn’t enough to cash your father’s credit card, see a foreign film, eat Chinese food and go back to your room with the Che Guevara poster. Vietnam and Kent State took care of that.

“The Kennedy assassination was a symptom of the unraveling of America. It was the first indication of the power of the CIA. I was a working-class kid who took America at her word: You can go your own way and you won’t be killed for it. But you know me. I’m perverse. When I heard the 1979 government report that the assassination was a conspiracy, then I said Oswald acted alone.

“How can you dine with Ronald Reagan?” the interviewer asked.

“He was loyal to me and he doesn’t ask me to agree with him,” Sahl replied, and added another distinction from his political guidebook. “A liberal will ask Nancy why she’s spent her life looking at a man adoringly. A conservative will say that Reagan is proof that an average guy with a second-rate intellect can be President if the right woman loves him.”

The interviewer asked if he were bitter, a charge that Sahl was growing weary of fielding. “Bertrand Russell said protest is life, conformity is death,” he replied.

Then she asked Sahl to give a preview of his act on the air, a request many performers would consider tactless. Gamely, he told one joke about Reagan’s response to the inefficient postal system: “I won’t fire them. I’ll just mail them their checks.”

“What keeps you going?”

“I’m like a Marine Corps rifleman, on the front line for 34 years, naively waiting for a replacement. Nothing is above humor, but the freedom we have to do it also means we have the responsibility not to be barbarous.”

The Washington Fiasco

By the following afternoon, the interview-as-adversary proceeding was beginning to look like an inescapable pattern. The Bork confirmation hearings were in session and the interviewer for the Christian Science Monitor, according to Sahl, scoffed at one witness’s concern with “guarding against breakdown.”

“The reporter said we’ve had permissiveness all these years and there’s no evidence of a breakdown,” Sahl noted. “I said, ‘Except the conservatives are re-elected because the liberals have been subverted and debased. Young people who should be radicals are given drugs. So are blacks, diverted by drugs which are available to them while they have substandard incomes. Motion pictures offer gratuitous violence and amoral solutions, and in the guise of freedom we have anarchy and nihilism. This sets the stage for defeatism, for no opposition--all in the name of doing your own thing.’ ”

Figuring that this last peroration would probably gain him no more than an indifferent profile at best, Sahl looked ahead to the “Nightwatch” interview and decided to fly to Washington early and take advantage of the overnight rest.

The trip turned out to be a fiasco. He talked about it the next day.

“I wanted the Grand, which is a nice hotel, but I was told they were booked. CBS put me in a place called the Ramada Renaissance for--get this--$50 a night. I got on the registration line behind a group of Japanese tourists and waited. A female clerk called over to me and asked me what I wanted. I stepped over by a pillar to answer her and she said, ‘I won’t serve you as long as you stand on that side of the pillar!’ She didn’t have the reservation. ‘Give me your credit card,’ she said. Then, ‘What company are you with?’ ‘CBS,’ I said. ‘That’s not good enough,’ she said.

“I gave her my Visa card and demanded to see what the arrangements were. She went through her routine about how ‘When you present this card you get a free glass of wine at the seafood bar.’ I looked at the room. It was a dive. It was so small you had to go into the hall to change your mind.” He laughed wanly as he recalled that old joke.

“I went down to see if any planes were left. All gone. I decided to take a cab to Amtrak. The doorman is yelling at all these cabdrivers jammed up in front. We drive back through Washington traffic. I come back on the train with the polarized society--dispirited blacks and drunken rednecks. You can quote me: ‘The train was so substandard that it was probably deregulated.’ Then, at Penn Station, a black guy in a bow tie claims to represent a cab company, grabs my bag and demands five bucks. He doesn’t work for any cab company. I roll in at 3 a.m.”

He turned on CNN again. The announcer quoted Mikhail Gorbachev as saying, “The world is a step closer to nuclear disarmament.”

“Hmmm. The CIA said he’s dead,” Sahl quipped. “I guess they missed. That’ll drive the stock market down.”

He called the theater to check on box office figures. “The advance is $38,000. He says it’s slow. But it’ll pick up.”

His face was etched with a crepuscular weariness.

China Brings Bad News

China was due in early Friday evening. The Nederlanders provided Sahl with a car and driver to meet her at JFK. The driver, a former professional pool player, adroitly managed the first half of the trip around the city’s ubiquitous construction sites, but toward the end couldn’t avoid the clots of traffic trying to get home for Yom Kippur.

Balanced in the back seat against its lurches and swerves, Sahl contemplated his latest indignities. A reporter from the Newark Star-Ledger wanted an interview during the period that Sahl wanted to set aside for a contemplative pre-opening rest. “I said, ‘Why can’t we do it Saturday instead of Monday?’ and Richards said that the reporter liked to have his weekends to himself.” Sahl shook his head. “I have to be concerned about their leisure.”

He waited by a baggage claim carrousel for over an hour and a half while a jumbo jet disgorged a human cargo of sunburnt, faintly rum-soaked travelers from Jamaica. Four carrousels down, unseen to him, China picked up her bags, looked around, waited, failed to spot him and took a cab to the Ritz.

By the time Sahl arrived back at the hotel, she was taut with worry. She knew he had needed her earlier, but she had had trouble lining up someone to take care of their son in California, with whom she was sharing jittery emotional aftereffects of the October earthquakes. She looked glamorously sleek (she’s an ex-Playboy bunny who has been married to Sahl since 1970), but her urgent over-explanation of why she’d taken a cab revealed her tensions.

“I waited 45 minutes and I didn’t see you so I called a cab, I was so worried about little Mort I called him from there and wanted to call him from here, he’s so upset. . . . “

She peered in his face. “Oh honey, look at you.” His face was ashen and his shoulders slack from nervous fatigue. She kissed and hugged him briefly. “You need to get some rest. We’ll have to get you some makeup to freshen you up. What’s been happening with you?”

China, who recalls somewhat Hemingway’s Lady Brett as a woman with lines as clean as a yacht’s, was also the bearer of bad news: The People magazine article, in her opinion, had done such a hatchet job on her husband that she wouldn’t let him read it. The article contended that Sahl’s Broadway appearance was a last-ditch effort to revive a moribund career. (Sahl’s friends, as well as the producers, read it differently. They considered the article favorable.)

“We trusted him,” Sahl said grimly. “We let him follow us around. We let him come to the house.”

There was more. China discovered that the opening-night guest list contained the specific request that the People reporter, Ken Gross, and Jackie Mason be seated together, apparently at Gross’ request. Was there a connection?

“Do you think Mason feels we’re cutting into his territory?” China wondered aloud. On the surface, both Sahl and Mason had been laudatory toward each other in print, with Sahl conceding that Mason had paved the way for another solo comedian spot on Broadway, and Mason acknowledging the richness of Sahl’s talent--which drew a different kind of audience.

“Remember the Concord?” China said. “Years ago Jackie Mason was working the Concord (in the Catskills) and I’d been invited up to appear on the night he was off,” Sahl explained. “The moment I walked out onstage, a couple of people got up and began singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ The rest of the audience got up, too, not realizing it’d been a disruptive device. The next morning the Daily News reported that I’d caused a riot. The story was a plant. There was no way they could’ve been on it so fast.”

“Maybe the article was my fault,” China said. “I wanted to stay out of it, but the reporter wanted to get me in the discussion and I got a little hostile.

The Showdown

The pitch of the Sahls’ protestations had begun to alert the Nederlander management which, though accustomed to dealing with the anxieties and demands of temperamental stars, had to be especially careful in this case--this was not an instance where they could bank on a last-minute replacement if their star proved too difficult.

The showdown had arrived: A meeting was scheduled at the theater for 1 p.m. Monday, two days before Sahl’s first preview. Executive producer Marvin Krauss was there to greet them. He was dressed in a green and off-white pullover sweater and his relaxed, congenial manner belied the suggestion of an underlying toughness. Krauss has a blue-collar union negotiator’s thickness to him--thick middle, spectacles, heavy, rough-edged voice--and he’s been around. He’s the current producer of “Dreamgirls,” and his Broadway portfolio has ranged from “La Cage aux Folles,” for which he won a Tony, and “Death of a Salesman” with Dustin Hoffman, to the Broadway concerts of Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli and Lily Tomlin.

They sat down in Sahl’s backstage dressing room. The rest of the Nederlander management, perhaps purposefully, had been delayed. When it was this close to opening, everyone’s nerves were ratcheted progressively tighter. With Krauss as point man, the Nederlander team had a psychological edge: Their lives in the theater hadn’t inured them to the uses of suspense.

Earlier, China discussed strategy with her husband. “I don’t know if you should be at the meeting at all,” she said. “But we shouldn’t let them think you’re a wimp, letting a woman fight for you. But we have to be concerned about your energy and concentration. I want you not to have to think about anything but the show. We’ll have to play it good cop-bad cop. I’m the bad cop.” They decided to stand together.

“Can you get a bar in here for the press?” China asked Krauss.

“No problem,” Krauss replied.

“How about a TV? Mort likes to keep up-to-date. He might see something fresh to put into his act that night.”

“The reception in here is no good,” said Krauss. “I can’t even get reception in my office upstairs.”

The Sahls had been planning to live in Scarsdale, the tony suburb north of the city, during the run and wanted to arrange for a limo.

“What about the cost. Could we arrange a trade-out in return for tickets?” China asked.

“That’s against the law,” Krauss said, patiently and evenly. “You’re not supposed to sell comps.”

“We’re having trouble finding a place to live,” China said. “With the earthquake, my son is frightened. We want him here with us, but it’s hard to get a place for three people. I want this to be as amiable as possible. We need help. I don’t want to incur any more costs than have been allotted. I know that the costs of the first week of the run are all spent on PR. We’re hoping the last three weeks will pay expenses. Still, I don’t think anyone should tell Mort that sales are slow.” Apparently, she had been unaware that Sahl himself had been checking with the box office. Krauss remained imperturbable.

“Frankly, I don’t think sales will go up until after he opens.”

“I’d like to keep the business away from my husband,” China said.

“I’ve never discussed business with him,” Krauss said, gently, but with unmistakable emphasis.

“He’s never had a bad review in his life,” China said.

“If he ever had a bad review, we wouldn’t be here.”

“I told Jim Nederlander Jr. we wanted to change PR. Don’t shake your head.”

“What’s the problem?” Krauss was looking calmly at his feet.

“They don’t know how to sell him. He’s a legend.”

“Who’s interviewed him that’s turned out bad?” Krauss asked.

“I’ve been sitting in the Jockey Club all day with reporters from Stamford and Newark,” Sahl interjected. “I have a wide acquaintanceship in this city with people like Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw. I don’t want to be redundant. There’s been a procession of young kids coming into the Jockey Club and telling me I’ve been nowhere for 21 years.”

“I thought because of the Nederlander reputation I could stay out of this,” China said. “Lee Stevens and Norman Brokaw (Sahl’s agents) can’t be on the phone all day. I don’t think the right contacts were made. The contacts were made at the lowest level.” The question of the guest list came up again. “Nancy Reagan told us, ‘If Mort goes to Broadway, we’ll make an event of it.’ ”

“Has this point been made before?” asked Krauss.

China countered, “Would you ignore this name on a guest list?”

Krauss discussed getting them a suite at the Mayflower as soon as possible. Then Sahl challenged the list of opening-night reviewers and asked why some--including the public radio critic--should be allowed in at previews.

“This list is comprised in accordance with the rules of the New York League of Theatres,” Krauss said. “This has to do with the voting for the Tonys. It’s the usual list. Some people have to come early, like the New York Times. They don’t hold the late edition, the way they used to.”

“Can you change the PR?” China asked.

Krauss shook his head. “No. There’s a contract.”

“How much?”

“Twelve hundred a week, plus payroll expenses.”

“Who’s handling Jackie Mason?”

“I don’t know.”

“The guy in People killed Mort. They wanna be seated together opening night.”

“How can it be a bad article?” Krauss asked.

“It tried to persuade people Mort wasn’t worth seeing.”

“Let’s get into that when we meet with Arthur Rubin,” Krauss said.

As if on cue, Rubin entered at the head of a small entourage that included James Nederlander Jr., general manager Peter Russell and Paul Loesser, who also represented management. They all wore suits and were briefly cordial but unsmiling. They filled up the little room with an imposingly heavy aura of officialdom. Tough guys. Rubin, a bald man with terse features, had a wary, poker-faced expression. The others remained silent while he took on China.

He listened to the complaints. When China contended that the press agent “did not work in a professional fashion,” Rubin countered, “You got a professional job. You got a lot of coverage. You got the whole New York Times. I wanted Mort sold to as many people as possible. I think what we’re doing here is arguing about the wrong things. What we want is a big hit.”

Rubin Turns the Tide

Jeffrey Richards entered, a smallish, balding, good-looking man whose face blanched somewhat once he realized he had been the topic of a controversy, but otherwise remained composed.

“What about the list?” Rubin asked him.

“Everybody got an invitation who was on the list,” Richards replied in a soft voice. Everyone’s eyes were on him.

“They were upset about the lower-class interviews, instead of getting top people,” Rubin said, nodding towards the Sahls.

“Like who?” Richards asked.

“Where should I begin,” Sahl said tartly. “How about the guy from Bridgeport?”

“That paper has a circulation of 150,000,” Richards said. “We got Newsday, the Times, People.”

“You sold him like a fire sale,” China said.

“It’s my fault,” Rubin interjected. “I instructed him to get everybody because I wasn’t sure New York knew Mort. OK.” He looked at Richards. “Let’s knock off everything now except ‘Live at Five.’ ” Rubin was moving things along by trying to inject a positive note. He listened to the tale of the “Nightwatch” mixup. “They should have treated him first-class,” China said.

“Everybody should be treated first-class,” Rubin said.

The Sahls were mortified over the sparse response to their party list and wanted the party canceled. “No,” Rubin said, turning to Richards. “Go back to the office. Get an update before we make a decision on that.”He listened to China’s report on the People story. “Let’s wait for the good reviews and go from there. Every house should be a full house,” he said, his voice taking on a slight oratorical ring. “The word-of-mouth should carry. I don’t care what it takes. Every seat should be filled right up to opening night. Go to NYU,” he said to Richards. “Go to the schools. Let’s get the professors, the students.”

“If you want the eager minds, work on the students, the yuppie groups,” China said. “Not the Jewish housewives.”

“We don’t go with those,” Rubin said.

“We might try hospitals, nurses, doctors,” Krauss said.

“Any professional group,” China said.

“That’s good,” Rubin said. “That’s good.” The tension had passed.

“ Business is not a bad word to me,” Sahl said, his voice rising in a tone that suggested a speech. “Not in this country, which doesn’t know how to do business anymore, as the Japanese are showing us. I’m saying it’s not good business to assume that half the people in this city don’t know me. I hold the attendance record of every club I ever worked, not by talent, but by a scientific working of the press. We four-walled and took 80% of the profit.”

“I did that as a positive, not a negative,” Rubin said. “I want to get as many people in this theater as possible. I wanted people to remember Mort Sahl from when they saw him 30 years ago.”

Rubin skillfully used that note of fond recollection to suffuse the present moment with a warm sentiment, and tacitly signaled the end of the meeting. The men got up, shook hands with the Sahls, and filed out of the room. Rubin sealed the message of his good intentions by arranging a suite for the Sahls at the Marriott Marquis, with whom the Nederlanders have a close relationship (their hit production of “Me and My Girl” is housed in the hotel’s Marquis theater).

In the aftermath of the meeting, the room seemed eerily quiet. “The responses are what I wanted,” China said. “Arthur Rubin wants a good show. He took the blame. I can see he’s on your side. Honey, don’t get upset anymore.”

Emotional Denouement

The Sahls walked back to the Ritz-Carlton along 6th Avenue in midtown New York’s relentless din of car horns, ambulance sirens, snarling truck engines and construction jackhammers echoing through the streets like berserk prehistoric woodpeckers. Amid the maelstrom of hard-faced New Yorkers urgently bent on their own private missions, the thought came up that the American people’s disaffection with government had grown so great over the past 20 years that Broadway may be more ripe for political humor than anyone had yet realized.

“Yeah, I have to tone down the audience’s level of rage instead of bringing it up,” Sahl said. At that moment they passed a tall, grizzled old derelict sporting a New York Mets cap and a week’s stubble.

“I don’t give a damn!” he barked in Sahl’s ear.

“Just a bag man,” China said.

“No, he’s a writer who’s had too much of New York. Probably from ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ” Sahl said.

“I feel like crying,” China said.

The Best Comes Last

On the night of the first preview, Mort Sahl stood backstage waiting to go on. Management had taken up China’s idea for a lighting scheme and, at China’s instigation, the stage was bathed in the hot, sensual glow of a tropical late afternoon. Sahl stood backstage, dressed in a hot pink pullover, his shirt collar open. Mort Jr., 11, had arrived and was eagerly attentive in the dressing room. Sahl quipped, “As I said to Bork, ‘Break a precedent.’ ”

China was out front, as was Rubin, Krauss, and Nederlander Jr., all scouting the house (Mort Jr. thought she was hiding). Sahl stood in the wings as the house went black and the stage manager announced the prohibition against taking photographs or recordings of the performance.

“The theater ritual,” Sahl said. “Some things die hard in this country. Except the real values.”

The delicate tapping sound of his heels receded as he stitched his way onstage in the dark. This was the calmest he’d been since arriving in New York. He’d come at last to the easy part.