John Raitt: Absorbed in ‘Zorba’ : ‘Everybody who ever played this role has had his life changed by it’

The last time Broadway veteran John Raitt performed on the stage of Plummer Auditorium was in 1934.

“Being back here again creates a tremendous nostalgia,” he said the other night in his makeshift dressing room--a converted utility closet--as he put on his makeup for the starring role in the Fullerton Civic Light Opera’s “Zorba,” a professional production that continues through June 3.

Nostalgia has a way of creeping up on a performer who has lasted more than a half century in show business. Raitt actually had cause for double nostalgia, having just returned from the 75th anniversary celebration for the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Conn., where uncounted musicals used to try out before taking the plunge in New York.

“I did ‘Carousel’ for three weeks at the Shubert,” he recalled. The Rodgers and Hammerstein classic went on to a nine-month Broadway run and made him a star in 1945 as the original Billy Bigelow. “I also did ‘Pajama Game’ there. Everybody played there, from Eddie Cantor to the Marx Brothers. That’s where Mary Martin first set foot on stage.”

The tall, sturdy, silver-haired actor recounted the celebration while sitting shirtless in red bikini underwear and a small, green towel knotted at his waist. He gazed into a table-top mirror and applied his facial makeup: first a base to darken the skin, then eye liner for accenting the eyes and finally some rouge to give his cheeks a ruddy glow under the stage lights.

Technicians came and went all around him, searching for light filters and microphone connections. A photographer hovered over him. “Zorba” director James Luisi popped in and out. But nothing seemed to disturb Raitt, who was invariably gracious, utterly devoid of star temperament and apparently so comfortable with strangers that he never asked anyone to leave while he dressed for his role.

This is not the first time the 73-year-old Raitt has starred in “Zorba.” Hal Prince, who produced and directed the original Broadway version in 1969, persuaded him to take the show on its first national tour during the ‘70s. “At first, I told him I wouldn’t play Zorba,” Raitt recounted. “I said, ‘I’m still dyeing my hair to play leading-man roles.’ ”

Besides, the role of Zorba wasn’t considered much of a gift to a singer, Herschel Bernardi’s sterling original performance notwithstanding. But Raitt gave in when Prince told him that composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb would write an additional song for him (“Bouboulina” in the second act.)

Years later in 1983, when “Zorba” was revived on Broadway with Anthony Quinn, the movie star countered negative criticism of his singing voice by claiming that Zorba, being an earthy peasant, was not supposed to sing well in the first place. “Obviously, Tony Quinn doesn’t sing,” said Raitt, looking amused. “But I loved his excuse.”

Voice or no voice, Quinn is more closely identified with Zorba than anybody because of his electrifying portrayal of the role in the 1964 movie “Zorba the Greek,” a brooding, non-musical screen adaptation of the Nikos Kazantzakis novel. Moreover, the Broadway revival with Quinn was a smash hit.

“He probably made $40,000 a week doing the show,” said Raitt. By now, he had donned a pair of black socks, a green shirt, blue corduroy pants and a pair of nearly knee-high leather boots. He checked his makeup in the mirror and, to complete his visual transformation into Zorba, put on a brown sheepskin-lined vest and a black beret, cocked at a rakish angle.

“Everybody who ever played this role has had his life changed by it,” noted Raitt, who was born in Santa Ana, grew up in Fullerton and lives in Pacific Palisades. “You can’t help it. In my workshop at home I’ve got 20 ‘Zorbaisms’ on the wall.” He offered two of them in the faintly European accent he uses on stage: “The only death is the death you die every day by not living” and “There are only two things that make a man a man--what’s in his heart and what’s in his pants.”

Both lines are in the show, which features Dennis McNeil as Nikos, Shirley Romano as Madame Hortense, Katherine Peters as the Widow, Alicia Irving as the Leader and Matthew DeCambio, George Sullivan, Randy Gianetti and H. Carl Nelson in other supporting roles.

Although Raitt hasn’t appeared on Broadway in more than a decade--the last time was in 1975 with Lillian Gish and Tammy Grimes in “Musical Jubilee”--he has done 25 consecutive years of summer stock, which affords him the chance to play in shows he would never have done otherwise.

“I was the loudest, tallest John Adams in ‘1776,’ ” he quipped. “I even did ‘The Fantasticks’ over at La Mirada” Civic Theatre.

Summer stock also enables him to continue working in the Broadway musical repertoire which he has long favored, such as “Shenandoah,” “Man of La Mancha” and “The Most Happy Fella.” Despite his age, Raitt doesn’t want to retire.

“I’ve still got a lot of energy,” he said. “And I can still sing. As long as people enjoy it, I’ll keep doing it.”

Raitt maintains, in fact, that his high lyric baritone is such a natural extension of his speaking voice that he never even does vocal warm-ups before a performance. “Some people cannot sing at my age,” he said. “Beverly Sills stopped at 52, right? But I’ll be able to sing for the rest of my life because I sing right where I talk.”

There are two basic things to singing well, he maintained: “One is musicianship, the other is character. You need proper enunciation, so people can understand you. And you need proper emotional control. If you’re scared, you can’t sing.”

What about all the technical mastery, such as diaphragm support, that goes into proper breathing? Raitt (who happens to be the father of singer Bonnie Raitt) grinned broadly.

“I don’t talk about breathing at all,” he said. “Why should I? I’ve been breathing for 73 years.”

Spoken like the true Zorba.

The Fullerton Civic Light Opera production of “Zorba” continues at Plummer Auditorium, Chapman Avenue and Lemon Street in Fullerton, through June 3. Performances are today at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets: $11 to $21. Information: (714) 879-1732.