‘Phantom’s’ Star Gobbles 2 Turkey Awards, a Dubious Feat Duplicated by His Producers

It has become a bit of an annual tradition Thanksgiving Day that while the big bird is roasting in the oven, we roast a few fouls of our own. The object is to have some fun, pass the time but not the buck and skewer a few minor and major transgressions. Are all you theatrical turkey types prepared? Here we go. . . .

The uncontested winner of this year’s I-Refuse-To-Share Turkey award is Michael Crawford, “The Phantom of the Opera’s” phantom, who, on the show’s much-awaited and much-ballyhooed opening night at the Ahmanson Theatre last May, reached across the footlights at the curtain call to swoop up the singular official bouquet of flowers that was being offered--and kept it to himself.

It spoiled a good performance.

It would have been nice if Crawford had thought to hand leading lady Dale Kristien a single, perfect rose perhaps? (Another performer did, from among some roses tossed on the stage by admirers in the audience.)

It would have been nicer, even--dare we say it?--chivalrous, if Crawford had given Kristien the entire armful.

It would have been nicest if the show’s producers, Cameron Mackintosh and the Really Useful Theatre Company Inc., had provided Kristien with a bouquet of her own. To those thrift-minded gentlemen we present our own bouquet: a really useful Manners-Turned-to-Mush award.

When told recently that his fans wanted to know if he would be renewing his contract in February and staying on with “Phantom” beyond that month, Crawford claimed terminal ignorance. He indicated that staying on would depend on his ability to endure more of the grueling eight-performance week he has put in over the last three years.

Could that endurance be influenced by the right renegotiations?

“As a businessman I’m a good mountaineer,” he told The Times, neatly avoiding the issue. So to Michael Crawford, the sly rascal, we offer a second award: the Say-Nothing-See-Nothing-Hear-Nothing Turkey. Cook it blind and let it feel its way out of the oven.

The “Phantom” company, ever on the lookout for a good bet, has made some quid-pro-quo marketing deals with American Express and Hyatt Hotels that offer preferential seating to holders of the American Express Gold Card and/or guests of the Hyatt Regency. There is nothing illegal about this, of course, merely ill-seeming. Let’s say it gives the appearance of elitism--enough to annoy (not to say enrage) non-Gold Card holders and people on Motel 6 budgets, who feel that their cash is as good as anyone else’s plastic. So to the “Phantom” producers again, we give the Golden Ill-etist Turkey Award.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s hear it for the poor effort made by the Ahmanson Theatre at providing security for honest civilians in line to buy tickets for such hot shows as “Phantom” and--believe it or not--”Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Doolittle Theatre (a.k.a. Ahmanson-on-Vine).

Buyers who were there when “Phantom” tickets first went on sale at the box office will not soon forget the assault put on by brokers (read scalpers) and their minions to move to the head of the line--or the puny showing by the theater’s security personnel to restrain them.

A parallel situation developed on a smaller but more violent scale when tickets went on sale for “Virginia Woolf” at the Doolittle. It ended in ticket-buyer Michael Nagel being punched in the face by an unidentified man, who promptly fled the scene by car. The violence caught theater management so off-guard that its security guards weren’t even around.

So to the Ahmanson management, on two counts, we give a twin Boy Scout Turkey award. Its motto, you’ll remember, is Be Prepared.

“We try to be careful,” Ahmanson artistic director Gordon Davidson said about the incident described above. “But you can’t legislate about who stands in line.”

No, but you can push for legislation to make scalping illegal. California theaters aren’t pushing enough. Scalping’s illegal in New York. Why not here? It even makes cents. Less money for brokers means more money for the theaters. So this year’s Big Gobbler award, collectively, goes to the legitimate theaters of California for not doing enough to initiate legislation outlawing scalping.

Those well-intentioned gentlemen in the West Los Angeles office of the city’s Building and Safety Department have come up with a winner. Ron Sossi, artistic director of the Odyssey Theatre, reports that they’ve required the set for “Nightclub Cantata” at the Odyssey to be ramped for wheelchair access, even though there are no performers with disabilities in the show.

Now we’re all for adherence to laws that improve the quality of life for the physically disabled, but where’s the logic, maestros? The maestros couldn’t be reached for comment, but we award the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety the Where-Did-They-Dream-This-One-Up Turkey for carrying the letter of the law from the sublime to the ridiculous.

They got it mixed up, but producer Kevin Von Felt got it backward when he advertised and tried to sell a month’s run of “A Christmas Carol” starring George C. Scott at the Wilshire Theatre before he had nailed down his financing. Scott pulled out Monday when contracts and money had failed to arrive, his agent said, “in a timely fashion.” Also when it turned out that Von Felt had no signed contract with the theater and was experiencing problems not only getting his backing together but also getting a set built in time. To Von Felt we offer a how-to manual on producing and the I’ll-Get-It-Right-Next-Time award.

The Jacksina Company Inc. ought to know its public relations better by now, but it won’t win any friends among reporters by referring to them (as it did in a recent press release) as “Dear Person-Who-Is-Important-To-Us-And-Makes-Our-Clients-Famous.” Your clients, dear Jacksinas, do that for themselves. Reporters report about it, the good and the bad. For this classic misunderstanding of a newspaper writer’s job description, we offer the Jacksina Company the second I’ll-Get-It-Right-Next-Time Turkey of the day.

And, winding down, a Peter Principle Turkey goes to the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (this member included) for putting on the longest, dullest award show ever this year in a well-meaning but misfired effort to celebrate 20 years of theater in Los Angeles.

Theater was rarely less well served. The hard lesson learned is that critics should leave staging shows to the professionals and stick to their poisoned pens.

And finally to me, myself and moi the Groan-and-Bare-It Turkey for assorted misdemeanors and missteps, among them the assertion that Beaumarchais’ “The Guilty Mother” had never been set to music when, of course, it had.