Spotlight
After about 17 years and 900 shows, the two performers look at their act as a celebration
Pianist- actors Richard Greenblatt and Ted Dykstra return to Vancouver for a month- long run of their popular show, 2 Pianos 4 Hands.
Two pianos, four hands, two million audience members.
When Richard Greenblatt and Ted Dykstra first swapped stories about growing up as piano nerds, they never imagined that they had hit the perfect chord and were about to launch one of Canada’s most applauded, lauded and durable stage shows.
After the two actors became friends about 25 years ago, they would occasionally swap stories about their adventures in piano-land.
“We each knew the other played the piano and we started talking about our childhoods and Kiwanis Music Festivals,” said Dykstra. “And even though Richard grew up in Montreal and I grew up in Edmonton, our childhoods were very, very similar, with relation to music, with relation to one female who was almost a surrogate mother for 10 years, from the age of seven to 17. And the decision to eventually abandon a career in classical music ( for a life in the theatre). So we had all this in common.”
Talking to The Vancouver Sun while preparing for a dress rehearsal at the Arts Club Theatre’s Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, Dykstra said a friend from Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre urged them to stop talking about doing a show together and start writing it. They spent about two years playing with the script and their pianos and, as they worked together, the duo decided to co- write, co- direct and co- star in the show that became 2 Pianos 4 Hands.
Before they had even finished putting their show together, the duo clearly had the keys to the theatre kingdom — 10 Canadian theatres and a New York producer had lined up to host the two veteran actors as they swapped stories and showed off their dazzling piano technique. Their 1997 production at the Vancouver Playhouse was revised as the warmup for their New York debut. Since then, their play has been seen offBroadway, in London’s West End, in Tokyo, and in more than 150 theatres around the world in a variety of productions featuring other performers — some of them staged by either Greenblatt or Dykstra.
“We certainly worried when we first did it that this was only going to be for music nerds, or even worse, piano nerds,” said Dykstra. “Then at the very first workshop performance, we had a friend come in and say, ‘ The show’s not about the piano, you know, it’s about tennis.’
“Every single scene he saw he’d had a similar experience in tennis. So we kind of breathed a sign of relief at that point. You certainly don’t have to have had one piano lesson or music lesson to get the show.”
But one reason the duo are looking forward to returning to Vancouver is because of “the huge classical music community.”
Just because the play works for all audiences, that does not mean there aren’t a few moments only their fellow piano nerds will fully appreciate. Greenblatt recalls that during their last visit to Vancouver, “One night, the B. C. Piano Teachers Federation came to see the show and they gave us a plaque at the end of the show for encouraging piano education.”
Despite all the venues they have played — with this show and all the others they have been involved with — both actors did the majority of their Vancouver work at the now- defunct Playhouse ( including a production of this show starring two women, directed by Greenblatt). 2 Pianos 4 Hands is the Arts Club debut for both men.
Since they stepped aside from the show to let others perform it, the duo say they are not tired of sharing their stories on stage. “We’re at about 900 ( shows) right now,” says Greenblatt. “We’re not quite in Yul Brynner territory, but we’re getting there.”
Asked how the show has evolved for them over the years, both men agree the biggest shift has been in their comfort level on stage. Says Dykstra, “We solved all the biggest problems with the show in the first year of playing, and what’s been left behind is something we’re really comfortable with.”
“We can literally look at this now as a celebration,” said Greenblatt. “There’s not that kind of sense of we’ve got to prove how good this is. We trust the material even more now.”
At one of their first Vancouver previews, their friend and fellow actor Tom Butler was at the show. Says Greenblatt, “He had seen us when we first played at Tarragon in ’ 96. He said that we played a lot better now than we did then. He’s right.”
Some personal shifts have also given the material more resonance. Says Dykstra, “Since writing the play I’ve become a parent, so I’m now fighting with my son about practising.”