DATELINE NEW YORK: Ukrainian stars on Broadway (08/01/99)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Ukrainian stars on Broadway

by Helen Smindak

Two Ukrainian musical stars are currently helping to light up the Great White Way with their shining talents.

Christina Pawl, a first-generation Ukrainian American from Minnesota, is one of the six Kit Kat Girls who generate the sexual element in the award-winning revival of "Cabaret," playing at the Roundabout Theater at Studio 54.

Eight blocks away, at the Richard Rodgers Theater on West 46th Street, Jeremy Kushnier, a third-generation Canadian, is wowing crowds with his song-and-dance antics in a high-energy musical, "Footloose," a stage adaptation of one of the most popular movies of the 1980s.

Neither knew of the other's existence until my interviews with them. The two performers come from opposite sides of the 49th Parallel: Ms. Pawl from Fergus Falls, Minn.; Mr. Kushnier from Winnipeg, some 300 miles to the north. Both trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, though at different times.

They are the latest in a long line of Ukrainian Broadway performers, among them John Hodiak ("Caine Mutiny Court Martial"), Ed Evanko ("Carmen," "Knickerbocker Holiday," "Rex" and "the Canterbury Tales"), George Dzundza ("The Ritz"), Karen Prunczik ("42nd Street"), Holly Palance ("Romantic Comedy), George de la Pena ("Woman of the Year," "On Your Toes" and "Red Shoes"), Jack Palance ("Darkness at Noon"), William Shust ("Arturo Ui," "The Country Girl" and "The Owl and the Pussycat") and Olga Talyn ("A Doll's Life" and "Phantom of the Opera"). Off-Broadway, of course, has its own lights: Tannis Kowalchuk, Mary Ellen Baker and the Yara Arts Group.

Come September, if all goes as planned, the Ukrainian roster on Broadway will expand to four. For one, Marc Kudisch, a principal performer in "The Scarlet Pimpernel," which played at the Minskoff Theater until May 30 and is enjoying summer engagement in Dallas, Houston and Atlanta, will resume performance in "Pimpernel" in New York on September 10, this time around at the Neil Simon Theater.

Ms. Talyn, presently on a principal contract with the national touring company of "Cabaret" as stand-in for the role of Fraulein Schneider, has performed the part 35 times to standing ovations in recent months. She has high hopes she will be chosen to play Fraulein Schneider on Broadway when the actress now in that role leaves the company in six weeks. Excited about this prospect and the recent purchase of a beautiful town-house in Princeton Landing, N.J., Ms. Talyn is continuing with the "Cabaret" tour in Chicago until August 7, then goes on to Washington, Toronto, Minneapolis and San Francisco.

This "Dateline New York" segment throws the spotlight on Christina Pawl and "Cabaret."

Le cabaret, le cabaret

Writhing sensuously, flirting with stageside patrons, Christina Pawl appears on stage with other Kit Kat Girls about 15 minutes before show time. With open kimonos revealing lean, scantily clad bodies, the women stretch languorously, perform splits and run scales on their musical instruments, stopping now and then to smoke or sip a drink.

The indolent warm-up establishes the air of jaded decadence that pervaded Germany at the start of the Third Reich. It is a mood that the Kit Kat Girls and four bare-chested Kit Kat Boys continue to evoke throughout the show as they sing, dance, act and play in the band.

Ms. Pawl, as Rosie, the band's trumpeter, is the first performer to be introduced at the start of the show by Michael Hall, the Kit Kat Klub emcee, in the song "Wilkommen," made famous by actor Joel Grey back in the '60s. Like the others, she is constantly moving - either perfuming a dance routine on stage, rushing up spiral stairs to the band loft to play the next song or back down to change the scenery. She has an extra role, too, that of the shaggy Gorilla singing "If You Could See Her" with the emcee toward the end of Act II.

"It's exhausting, but I love it," the blonde, blue-eyed entertainer declared when we chatted over brunch at a Midtown inn. "There's very little downtime, when there are scenes without music, we race to the dressing room to change costumes for the next dance number."

When I observed that many critics felt the "Cabaret" chorus is vital to creating the overall mood that audiences have found so evocative, Ms. Pawl nodded in agreement. "A lot of people have told us that the Kit Kat Girls hold the whole show together."

Ms. Pawl's basic costume consists of little shorts ("my shorts are the skimpiest - they made The New York Times after opening night") a bra, the open kimono, ripped stockings held up by a garter belt, and T-strap pumps. "We also wear track marks, bruises and tattoos, and we each have our own hairstyle - mine is a center part with two short pony tails," she added.

She was somewhat concerned about her parents' reaction to her brief costume and the show's sexual innuendos. But Julian and Myroslava Pawlyszyn, who were born in Borschiv and Zhytomyr and came to the U.S. via Germany in the early 1950s, had tears of joy in their eyes when they watched their daughter's performance.

"My dad said, 'This is the way it has to be' when he saw the costumes," she recalled. "My parents loved the show. But my dad, who's a retired doctor, was also a psychiatrist who worked in alcohol and drug dependence for many years. When he saw the Kit Kat Girls smoking cigars, he turned to my sister and said it was not healthy, it could cause an addiction."

Ms. Pawl says her parents have always supported her desire to be in show business. There was a cultural atmosphere at home and a deep love of music. "Music surrounded our family," she reminisces. "When we were little, my sisters and I would march around with pots and pans as dad hummed songs and my mom would play the music. Dance was always in my body and I loved it."

After a summer in Winnipeg, where she trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and took Ukrainian folkdance lessons from "Pani Snihurovich, who had been a prima ballerina in Ukraine," she spent four years on a trumpet scholarship at Texas Christian University, graduating with a BFA degree. She got a job at Opryland in Nashville, Tenn., which was a great experience, she notes, because it provided insight on where to take classes and how to start the audition process.

Since coming to New York in December 1983, the comely musician, who stands 5 feet 3 1/2 inches tall, has been kept busy with a variety of jobs in and away from the Big City: "The Muppet Show" (which brought a much-desired Actors' Equity card in 1985), a role in "Kiss Me Kate" at the Berkshire Theater Festival, European tours of "Oklahoma!" and "West Side Story," touring with pop singer Nocera and trumpet playing in "Who 'Da Funk It."

She did a solo singing engagement in Japan and appeared in two films in the U.S., "Let It Be Me" and a remake of "Miracle on 34th Street." Her Broadway debut came in "Meet Me in St. Louis" in 1989.

"I've had tough years, partly by choice, but I would rather focus on what I want next, even if that means going backwards a little bit," she says. "Trade shows, babysitting, teaching dance and acrobatics, and the trip to Japan - they've all been worth it."

There have been good times along the way, too, such as a two-month trip Ms. Pawl took to Lviv and Kyiv with a side excursion to the Carpathian Mountains that included a stop for picture-taking in Borschiv. The visit came about during the third year of Ukraine's independence, when she was invited to join a group of friends who were delivering computers donated by a private individual. She found Lviv particularly attractive, and remembers the whole visit with great fondness even though a travel-agency error caused a departure delay, stranding the group for a week in a dormitory with little money and no change of clothing ("we'd given everything away").

Ms. Pawl was originally cast in "Cabaret" two and a half years ago, and the show was scheduled to run at the Supper Club in Manhattan. The project, however, never got off the ground and was finally canceled. A year later she received a call from the producers; they asked her to come back and audition again. This time, the musical was planned for Studio 54, where small tables and low lighting create an intimate, night-club atmosphere.

Preview performances of "Cabaret," which tells the story of an Englishwoman's romance with an American writer against the backdrop of a crumbling Germany, began in February 1998. Opening night, which took place on March 19, was followed by critical acclaim.

Ms. Pawl's work in "Cabaret" calls for eight shows a week, including six evening performances and two matinees, with only Monday off. This grueling program, plus a daily schedule that takes in reading, filing, vocalizing (or a voice lesson) and physical exercise (either stretching at the gym or a ballet barre) leave little time for two favorite pastimes: beach excursions and bargain hunting. Yet Ms. Pawl somehow manages to explore New York, visit friends in the Ukrainian neighborhood in the East Village, and get together for family events with two older sisters who live with their families on the East Coast.

Ms. Pawl says she feels really lucky to be in "Cabaret." "The show has been incredible, with people I can learn from, a brilliant director, a wonderful assistant director. I've been riding a high and enjoying it. The show is so good - it has won four Tony Awards - I think it will run for at least another year," she says.

Whether she will remain with "Cabaret" through its entire run is a moot point, though she isn't sure where she will go next. Having tasted the exhilaration of "Cabaret," where all the characters stand out as separate personalities, she is certain she doesn't want to return to "strictly ensemble work."

The film world beckons, particularly independent film and the lure of Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival, and so does acting as a principal actor, an individual. But, wherever she goes, Christina Pawl has the determination and the positive thinking to tackle any goal she desires.

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