Terrence
McNally – Playwright, librettist, screenwriter
Born
November 3, 1938; died March 24, 2020
In
terms of commercial success, his 1987 play, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de
Lune, saw McNally adapt his two-hander about a one-night stand between a short
order chef and a waitress into a film starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer.
His book for Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1992), the musical of Manuel Puig’s novel
about a gay window dresser and a South American revolutionary sharing a prison
cell, written with John Kander and Fred Ebb, won McNally his first Tony.
By
this time, McNally’s writing had moved from the barbs of his early plays to
something more nuanced, as he explored the complexities of everyday
relationships with a warmth that permeated throughout his mature works. As he
put it in a 2014 interview with the New York Times, “I think I write about the
difficulty of people connecting as they’re trying to find hope, trying to find
their way to real love and commitment.”
The
change came after McNally stopped drinking, a habit he accelerated after the
failure of showbiz pastiche, Broadway, Broadway (1978). He sobered up after
actress Angela Lansbury gently reprimanded him at a party. Frankie and Johnnie
in the Clair de Lune was his first dry work.
Michael
Terrence McNally was born in St Petersburg, Florida, to Hubert and Dorothy (nee
Rapp) McNally, a pair of native New Yorkers, who ran a seaside bar and grill
called the Pelican Club. When a hurricane destroyed their premises, they
briefly moved back to New York, then to Dallas, Texas, before settling in
Corpus Christi, Texas, where they bought a beer distributorship. McNally’s
one-time drinking habits might have been influenced by his parents, but they
also gave him a love of theatre from an early age.
When
he was eight, he was taken to see Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun, and later
saw Gertrude Lawrence play opposite Yul Brynner in The King and I. At school,
he was encouraged to write by his teacher, Maureen McElroy, who introduced him
to the work of Shakespeare. McNally started writing plays as a teenager, and
studied journalism at Columbia University. He approached The Actors Studio with
a play, which was turned down, though he was invited to work on shows there to
gain theatrical experience. McNally began a relationship with playwright Edward
Albee, who had not long written his debut one-act piece, The Zoo Story. The
pair were together for four years in a relationship in which McNally became
frustrated by Albee’s unwillingness to be open about his sexuality.
Music,
and opera in particular, was a profound influence on McNally. At one time he
was a regular panellist on a radio quiz show that aired during broadcasts of
the Metropolitan Opera, and it was music that gave his work much of its
emotional pulse. This was the case in The Lisbon Traviata (1980), which
referenced opera diva Maria Callas, about whom he wrote Master Class (1995),
winning a Tony for best play in a solo piece that starred the recently deceased
Zoe Caldwell as Callas.
Once
he started writing again, McNally formed a lengthy alliance with Manhattan
Theatre Club, who produced all of his non-musical work for thirteen years,
beginning with It’s Only a Play (1986), a successful reworking of Broadway,
Broadway. His second Tony winner, Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), also
premiered there. The relationship with MTC ended after Corpus Christi. McNally
won his third Tony for Ragtime (1997), a musical adaptation with Kander and Ebb
of E.L. Doctorow’s novel.
In
1990, McNally won an Emmy for Andre’s Mother, about a woman dealing with her
son’s death from AIDS. He revisited the same characters in Mothers and Sons
(2014). A perhaps unlikely venture saw McNally write the book for The Full
Monty (2000), a musical adaptation of the 1997 British comedy film about a
group of unemployed Sheffield steel-workers who become male strippers. Written with
composer and lyricist David Yazbek, McNally’s version relocated the action to
Buffalo, New York, and put a gay relationship at the story’s centre.
A
documentary profile, Every Act of Life (2019) featured new interviews with
McNally and a host of collaborators. In 2019, he received his fifth Tony award,
for lifetime achievement. “Not a moment too soon,” he said, accepting the
award, having already survived lung cancer, and suffering from chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease. It was a remark that captured the understated
wit of one of the most humane playwrights of his era.
He is
survived by his husband, Tom Kirdahy, who he married in 2003, before they renewed
their vows in 2010, and his brother, Peter.
The Herald, April 20th 2020
ends
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