Frank Ferrante’s Groucho

“I seen my opportunities, and I took ’em.” — Tammany Hall politician George Washington Plunkitt.

This past weekend was sock-o for a zillion reasons, but the catalyst for it all was the fact that world-famous Groucho Marx impersonator Frank Ferrante was playing an engagement in the city of my birth, Westerly, Rhode Island. Despite the fact that Frank was presented at Marxfest in both 2014 and 2024, and a couple of good friends had performed with him down at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia a few years ago, I still hadn’t managed to see his act live. As it happens, my best friend from high school (the friend, in fact, who had played Chico to MY Groucho in the school talent show over 40 years ago) lives about five minutes away from the venue for the show, Westerly’s lovely beaux-arts era Wilcox Park. With a spontaneity I rarely get to exercise anymore, I grabbed the bull by the horns, hopped on a train (must have been a cattle car!), and to the show we went!

I took this snap of the set before Ferrante came out. We had front row seats and I didn’t want to distract him by taking pix during the show. (That is, distract him, or call attention to myself, as Frank does go full-bore Groucho during the show, which means teasing targeted audience members relentlessly You Bet Your Life-style. The mature Groucho never worked the Catksills, but if he had, I imagine this show is what the experience would be like. The lady next to me and her husband got the lion’s share of the ribbing, although Frank did grab my leg and pump it during that little snatch of the “Anvil Chorus” from Il trovatore that the Marx Brothers always loved to poke fun of. I’m pretty sure it’s in at least three of their movies):

The rope is so the bobby-soxers don’t rush the stage!

Ferrante has been living and breathing the part for 40 years. The present iteration of the show, directed by Dreya Weber, mixes Ferrante’s own memories and appreciations of the late comedian, along with Groucho’s reflection on his life and career, and comedy material from the movies and other Groucho performances. My favorite parts of the show were the songs (from Animal Crackers through At the Circus), with two special treats being “Tit Willow” fromThe Mikado (Groucho had played Koko in a TV production), and the Dr. Hackenbush song that was so ignominiously cut from A Day at the Races. Ferrante’s a terrific singer — in fact he’s a much better singer than Groucho (admittedly not a high bar), and he is also capable of doing that favorite trick of Groucho’s of singing in a high register, and then going down to a very low comic bass for laughs. (Kudos, too, to musical director and accompanist Gerald Sternbach, whose list of credits is mighty damn impressive — among much else, it includes Carrie’s Fisher’s Wishful Drinking at the Geffen Playhouse. He is called upon to summon the energies of both a Chico Marx and a Marvin Hamlisch, no mean feat.)

I also heartily appreciated Ferrante’s recourse to that old vaudevillian’s trick of making jokes at the expense of the neighboring one-horse towns (Pawcatuck and Stonington in this case). As any Marx Brother, real or simulated, will testify, that stunt is always sure fire.

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Big gratitude to Westerly’s Colonial Theatre for booking the show. Why them? Why this? Ours not to reason why, Jameson! We know the original Marxes played Providence back in the day, because that’s where S.J. Perelman first caught them. This is not to downplay the charms of Westerly. In fact, I’m about to sing its praises in my next post. Give me a minute, though. I’m still nursing a sore leg from where Frank Ferrante pumped it!

For more on Frank Ferrante’s Groucho, and where to see him next, go here.