One of the most touching moments in Harvey Fierstein’s Tony-nominated play Casa Valentina comes mid-way through the first act when the other guests perform a makeover on the shy, bookish Jonathon and he finally sees Miranda, the beautiful woman he’s held inside himself.
After the fully formed Miranda sees herself for the first time, Charlotte says to her, “Quite often when we dress we find we look like some relative or other. An aunt or cousin.”
So, when BroadwayBox caught up with the show’s seven male stars on opening night, we had to know: Who did you see in the mirror the first time you saw yourself fully dressed?”
Gabriel Ebert (Jonathon/Miranda)
“My mother. I remember putting on a dress and just casually looking in the mirror and being stricken with the fact that I looked like my mother. I took a picture and sent it to her, and she sent me some pictures from her high school yearbook, and it’s shocking. I feel like I’m the daughter she never had.”
John Cullum (Terry)
“I saw my mother, who died in an automobile crash six weeks after I came to New York. She was about 56, so a good deal younger than me. And I have repressed thinking about her for 50 years, and when I see myself in the mirror now, I see my mother; in some ways it’s therapeutic. And then a cousin of mine saw the show last week and she said I look exactly like my sister Carol Elizabeth, who died two years ago. So all my family is gone, but I’m having a reincarnation of my sister and my mother.”
Larry Pine (Judge/Amy)
“My character doesn't really wear anything but lipstick, a wig and these nice glasses, so I don’t really look anybody in my family. Absolutely nobody. When we first did it, that first day, we were made up like crazy; and I looked in the mirror, and I thought I looked like some hideous clown. And everyone said, ‘no you’re beautiful,’ but I could see.”
Patrick Page (George/Valentina)
“Oh, it’s my mom for me. She’s a little tiny woman—4’10, 80 lbs—so there’s a big difference. She’s still alive; she’s 85 years old, and she’s going to come see the show in May for Mothers Day.”
Tom McGowan (Bessie)
“My Aunt Gladys, who just turned 90. I’ve had about eight or nine relatives come and every single one of them said, ‘Oh my god, you look like Aunt Gladys.’ Even before the wig and the dress I favored her, but putting a wig and a dress on, it’s aunt Gladys all the way.”
Reed Birney (Charlotte)
“I saw a version of my mother, and it was nice. As I’ve gotten older, I see her more and more in my face, but I haven’t been in a wig and a dress, so this was the final thing.”
Nick Westrate (Gloria)
“Absolutely Rita Hayworth. No question about it.”
Casa Valentina continues at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
