The English actor Ben Daniels and the American actress Spencer Kayden were on the Roundabout’s Broadway stage the other day, rehearsing the tango for a French farce called “Don’t Dress for Dinner”—or, as it’s known in Paris, “Pyjamas pour Six.” (Don’t ask.) Dardo Galletto (tango master and choreographer; Argentina) was adjusting their steps, while his star pupil and assistant, Patrizia Chen (novelist; Manhattan via Italy), glided beside them, translating his more mystifying instructions into simpler English.
“Make a family!” Galletto said.
“Glue your groins together,” Chen explained.
John Tillinger (director; Connecticut via Tabriz and London), watching from the fifth row, had something to say: “Just don’t lose that in-out-in-out snap of the heads.”
“You mean the boink-boink-boink-boink?” Kayden said.
Galletto was skeptical.
“It’s a joke,” Tillinger said. “That’s what I do, put the jokes in. Keep it.”
Now ask. What is a tango doing in the middle of a country-house comedy about a priapic couple, a proverbial best friend, a petulant mistress, a pretty cook, her jealous husband, and the insane logistics of adultery when everyone ends up in the right place at the wrong time—especially when the place is in Normandy, about as far from the milongas of Buenos Aires as you can go on an Air France jet without refuelling? In Paris, where the show ran for two years, the characters were French. In London—for seven years—they became British. Now, in New York, the cook and her husband are back to being French. Tillinger said, “The only things that must never change in ‘Don’t Dress’ are the sex and the tango.” The tango clocks in at two and a half minutes.
Daniels and Kayden play Robert the best friend and Suzette the cook. Robert is sleeping with Jacqueline, Bernard’s wife, but Suzette, who sleeps only with her husband, George, has been persuaded (for two hundred francs, and that’s just the beginning) to pose as Robert’s girlfriend so that Bernard’s mistress, Suzanne, can play her, and Jacqueline won’t suspect a thing. No one, not even Tillinger, knows why Robert and Suzette come tangoing in from the kitchen at the start of the second act. Perhaps it’s because, by then, everyone in the play is tipsy on anxiety and champagne, or perhaps it’s simply because they are into the masquerade. In any event, it’s a showstopper.
Daniels, who could dance a minuet and a farandole by the time he finished drama school, knew nothing at all about tango until “Don’t Dress.” Kayden, who never dances unless she has to, began their tango rehearsals with a slight edge. She had played Suzette in Tillinger’s first production of “Don’t Dress,” three years ago, in Chicago, and managed “a kind of tango.” Tillinger describes it as “the conventional one, the arms-out-and-long-strides-across-the-floor tango we all did in the sixties. This time, we went for the real thing.”
“We were just starting to talk about the play when John said, ‘Now, about this tango,’ ” Daniels said, during a break. “I had never done comedy before. I suddenly thought how good it would be, how funny, if we danced it really well—if we were drunk and inspired, and came on with that panache.” Tillinger had the same thought. He knew Chen, and had once even gone milonga-hopping with her in Buenos Aires. Chen called Galletto, and the next thing Daniels and Kayden knew they were in Galletto’s studio, stumbling through a beginner’s class.
“It was so embarrassing,” Kayden said. “Ben’s legs are twice as long as mine.”
“In tango you’re not allowed to overtake people,” Daniels said. “I upset the etiquette with my long strides. I couldn’t take two steps without stepping on Spencer.”
“I had wounds,” Kayden said. “I was bleeding from all those gashes. But it was my fault—I should have been taking bigger steps.”
“No, it’s the man’s responsibility to lead,” Daniels told her. “I think of tango now as improv in real life, only choreographed. What I love about Dardo is how he gets you to that place where you feel the intention—that transfer of energy, that negotiation of sexual power—where it’s there in your body, like a martial art.” Kayden said, “And what I love about Patrizia is that she shows you how concentrated those motions are—how the upper part of the body is quiet, and it’s the lower part that moves. She would tell us, ‘Keep the power down. Your feet should caress the floor.’ ”
The break was over. The cast ran through the tango scene, which was smooth and funny, with Kayden’s long black cook’s skirt pulled up to become a strapless minidress and Daniels’s long legs leading. They made a lot of families.
“Most people would take two or three years to get this far,” Galletto said. “They did it in three weeks. They’re artists. They were open to that lovely negotiation.” ♦
