As Larry Yando preened and air-kissed up a storm in his Travolta suit at the cast party for "The Lion King," his genial understudy in the major role of the villainous Scar looked on with wry amusement.
It was quite the Disney show-biz scene in a borrowed Civic Opera House late on Saturday night, replete with martinis, a huge logo cake, grinning executives, and an unusually relaxed Julie Taymor boogying down with the kids playing the young Simba.
Yando was having the time of his life. But his understudy, as is usually the case with such creatures, was in a more reflective mood.
"Here's the thing about Larry," opined Chicago actor Jonathan Weir. "He can do a role that's Wagnerian in scale, but he also can fill it believably."
Weir has spent nine weeks sitting and carefully watching Yando do Scar the lion -- the Don John of Pride Rock, the diabolic big kitty who conspires with Hyenas, the cynical villain with the deadpan phraseology and the flat one-liners from the Jeremy Irons playbook.
And on the night when Yando's success reached a new level of national visibility, Weir had figured his friend out and was happy for him.
"Larry," Weir said, "has actually managed to make Scar his own. That wasn't easy for him."
Yando, a 15-year veteran of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire and Writers Theatre in Glencoe, is the most recognizably Chicago aspect of this version of the wildly and deservedly successful Disney musical, a show wherein the creators do everything in their considerable power to ensure high-quality but highly consistent productions.
Any actor taking over such a well-plowed role (there have been more than a dozen Scars to date), has to dodge pitfalls. Bridle too much against the established movements and line readings and you upset the Disney apple cart. Let the character appear rote, and you'll be accused of cartoonish plasticity. It's a well-compensated gig (by Chicago theater standards, at least), but it's a tough job in a heavy, bulky costume.
Over the last two months, Yando grew to fit the part.
A few days before rehearsals for "The Lion King," as he finished up playing Titus in "Titus Andronicus" at the low-rent Defiant Theatre, he seemed wryly amused at the Disney love of control, coyly saying, "I might be starting something on Monday. Then again I might not."
On the first day of rehearsals, he looked overwhelmed by the whole affair.
But as things progressed, he got more confident and, clearly, became fond of Jeff Lee, the Taymor associate who did the heavy lifting on the Chicago production.
"Jeff keeps talking about spirituality and the heart of the show," Yando said. He had figured out that he had to hit all the prearranged buttons, and, if he did, they'd let him have fun.
"It's like skating," he said. "If you can do the compulsory, then they let you do the long program."
On Saturday morning, Yando affected weariness.
"Get the thing open!" he screeched down the phone. "There have been rehearsals, previews, notes, more notes. Everything else I have worked on would have opened and closed by now."
But on Saturday night, Yando was in rare form, finding subtle comic nuances that other Scars had failed to find and turning a cartoon villain into something at least approaching a credible character. Taymor, whose face wrapped up tight when she saw something she did not like, grinned whenever Yando did his stuff.
Yando's mike went out briefly, but he hadn't realized until "80 people started swarming around me when I got off stage. This is, you know, Disney."
At midnight Saturday, Yando was outside on Wacker Drive, sucking down a cigarette.
"They were talking to me about [joining] the Australian cast," he said, grinning. "All I really want to do is pay off all my student loans."