THEATER NOTES : ‘Marvin’s’ Moments to Remember

The “Marvin’s Room” company at the Tiffany Theatre will probably never forget last weekend. First, on Friday, the star-studded audience included Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Secret Service. Then, on Sunday, at what was to have been the final performance, a neighborhood power outage forced the show to go on in semi-darkness.

The excitement began two days before the First Lady’s visit with the arrival of the Secret Service. The agents gave the Tiffany, a Sunset Strip complex with two 99-seat halls, “a complete exam,” said Tiffany owner Paula Holt. They also did background checks on the theater employees--though not on the cast, said Holt. Of course, one of the cast members was well known to the Clintons--co-star Mary Steenburgen is a friend and was the draw for Mrs. Clinton.

Holt had invited a number of Hollywood celebrities to Friday’s performance--”it makes it more comfortable if she’s not the only celebrity in the room”--and most showed up. “The phone rang all week long (prior to the show) from people insisting they were terribly important” and wanted seats that night, Holt said. The other audience members were invited by the cast and crew, she said, so everyone was known to someone with the company.

Secret Service agents were stationed around the perimeter of the hall, at each end of Mrs. Clinton’s row, directly behind her, backstage at entrances to the stage, in the lobby and in the parking lot. A Secret Service dog sniffed for explosives before the show began and remained nearby. Several other dogs helped patrol the parking lot.

Other than that, how was the play? Could anyone actually concentrate on it? Holt said the audience was very attentive, and a Secret Service agent later told her he “really enjoyed it.” No, the members of the delegation from Washington didn’t buy their tickets. “It was our pleasure to have them not pay for their seats,” Holt said.

It’s fortunate that all this took place on Dec. 2 instead of Dec. 4. A half hour before the final scheduled performance of the play last Sunday evening, the power went out, leaving emergency lights on only in the lobby and above the audience section of the hall. The cast immediately agreed to reassemble five days later for a make-up performance and offered anyone in the audience (including Cher) a chance to come back then.

Realizing that not everyone would be free five days later, the cast also decided to try to perform Sunday night despite the blackout. Fifteen flashlights were found for backstage use, a boom box was recruited to handle the sound cues, director Dennis Erdman announced selected lighting cues, and three-fourths of the audience stayed (not including Cher), Holt said. Because of the emergency house lights, the audience was more fully lit than the cast--who performed closer to the audience than usual. “You could hear the language very clearly,” Holt said.

However, almost as if on cue, the emergency lights went out at the end of act one. At that point, it became too dangerous to go on, so the makeshift performance ended. Escorted by flashlights, the audience left, greeted by a largely darkened Sunset Boulevard.

DESERT THEATER: A new professional theater company in Palm Springs is born. Palm Springs Rep has begun a series of live radio plays starring Hollywood talent, which will continue through June 24, and it plans to add full-scale productions at the Annenberg Theater in 1995-96 and at the San Gorgonio Playhouse in San Bernardino in 1996-97. Gary Walker is the artistic director. Information: (619) 323-3456.*