Back to Broadway for 17th show

Chicago - For Nathan Lane, the fall of 2003 in Chicago was the happiest of times. The out-of-town tryout of Mel Brooks' "The Producers," which starred Lane and Matthew Broderick as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, was greeted by cheering audiences right from the first public performance.

"In Chicago, they were even laughing at the bad stuff," Lane recalled over dinner at Petterino's, his favorite Chicago theater-district haunt. "When we got off stage that first time, Matthew and I said to each other, well, it won't be like that every night. But it was."

With his beloved (and now deceased) wife Anne Bancroft at his side in Chicago, Brooks was in a similarly ebullient mood. "We had a birthday party for Anne right in this restaurant," Lane recalled, scanning the crowded room as a wistful expression crossed his face.

"And Mel got up on a table and sang 'Sweet Georgia Brown."'

Lane was in a strikingly emotional mood a few days before his first public performance as Gomez Addams of "The Addams Family," which he said will be his 17th Broadway show ("that must be more than Marian Seldes"). The musical, now in previews, opens Dec. 9 and will run through Jan. 10 before heading to New York for an April premiere.

He had been coaxed into the project - and away from another more tenuous Broadway project - when writer Marshall Brickman called him and said the very thing that torpedoes the defenses of every actor: "We wrote this part with you in mind."

Of course, because Lane happens to be the biggest living star of American musical comedy, that statement doubtless also had the rare, additional virtue of being true.

Lane's accessible emotions are, of course, the root of his comic brilliance. But he said they had also been sparked by Gomez, whom he is imbuing with a light accent, befitting his Castilian origins, and whom he regards as a character with a much deeper emotional core than that old rogue Bialystock.

"I am really loving being a father," Lane said. "This is a surprisingly emotional show. It's like a Shakespearean meditation on love. Andrew (Lippa) has written this song called 'Happy/Sad,' which is what every parent feels when their child grows up. The song just kills me. It's the first time Gomez doesn't have an easy answer for something. He has to be a parent. When we did it yesterday, we were all crying."

Lane, of course, is developing a theatrical funny side for Gomez, whom cartoonist Charles Addams conceived as an independently wealthy Lothario who doesn't have to work for a living. "He loves dancing with his wife every night at 7, which he hopes will lead to sex," Lane said.

"He is devoted to his family and he embraces everybody. And he is incredibly inappropriate."

In the old days of tryouts, a star could wrestle the inappropriate from his performance in relative anonymity.

Not any more. Internet chat boards light up with reports and commentary right from the first moment the lobby doors are unlocked.

"This process never fails to be exhilarating and nerve-racking. It is the unknown," Lane said before crossing the street and heading back to rehearsal. "Some people climb mountains. Some jump out of planes. I get up onstage in front of 2,300 people and tell them a story. You just hope people respond."