Photo by Morris Mac Matzen
We here in New Jersey, we get, what, 45 million cable television networks and at least once a week they all air the hit Richard Gere/Julia Roberts hit movie Pretty Woman. I have seen it on a cable network at least once a week for the last three years. I love it and I always wished someone could take that song, and that unbeatable love story, and turn it into a musical.
Well, now they have.
The musical Pretty Woman is on a national tour and it stops here this Saturday, October 7th and Sunday, October 8th at the State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick.
“It is the movie with music,” laughs Chase Wolfe, the young actor who plays the Edward Lewis character in the movie (played by Richard Gere in the film). “Everything people love about the movie and a lot of really good extra music, is in the play. The characters are the same. The story is the same. You loved the movie? Well, then, you will love the play.”
For the five Americans who never saw the movie, it is the tale of an incredibly good looking, incredibly rich businessman, who meets an L.A. hooker and hires her to be his escort for a week. You can guess the rest.
Wolfe, who grew up in South Carolina, had never seen the movie (he had to be the only living American who had not), when he got a call to audition for the role. “ I had seen bits and piece of it on TV, but never all of it, or the end,” he said.
His audition in itself could make a separate musical.
“I was working as a singer on a cruise ship and we were going to dock in New York several weeks after I got the call. As secretly as I could, I sneaked off the cruise ship – not a single person saw me – jumped in a cab and raced to the audition studio. They told me to dress like I was a billionaire and I did – well, millionaire. I got the job and I was just thrilled.”
How could he have never seen the movie on TV?
“Hey, I called my mother to tell her I got the role. ‘Pretty Woman?’ she said. 'It’s always on TV here. I just saw it again last night.'”
Actually, Wolfe says, just about all the people who see the play have seen the movie. “They can all quote lines from the script,” he said. “It’s the most amazing thing I ever saw.”
What is the charm of the film? Why do so many people love it and why do so many watch it so often?
“Oh, simple – it’s a modern day ‘Cinderella.’ Cinderella here lives in downtown L.A. and everybody tries to get her away from Prince Charming. In the end, Prince Charming does not want her, either……….but then………..” I think people who see the play root for her, and Edward Lewis too, because we all want Cinderella to win in the end.”
Wolfe found the Edward Lewis role easy to play and hard to play, both at the same time.
“Everybody sees Richard Gere as Edward Lewis. I can’t play Richard Gere as anybody. I had to make the role my own, and think I did. The Edward Lewis I give the audience is a more honest, down to earth guy than Gere. You have to do that, play a role as yourself” he said.
He’s different than Gere and the play writers added a narrator to help move the story along.
“He appears at the start and finish of the movie. Here, they beef his role up a little and he helps tell the story. That helps a lot,” said Wolfe.
Wolfe thinks that the Vivian in the play (Julia Roberts) is an honest woman. She meets Gere, though, and her entire life changes. When they are together she is sweet and warm and her beauty means nothing to this latest, and greatest, man in her life.
And that laugh of hers!!!
“That worked in the film. You did not love Vivian (Julia Roberts) because she was gorgeous, but because she was an honest women with problems who meets this terrific guy who maybe can solve them,” said Wolfe.
Wolfe is that way with women in his real life. The bachelor has met plenty of women and says he never looks for the beauty.
“It is what’s inside a person that counts. It has always been that way and always will be that way. I want the women I go with to be terrific women. The beauty does not matter, not at all.”
He thinks the play shows how the handsome party-hearty Edward Lewis changes in the story, too. “There’s a scene about three quarters of the way through the story, when Edward completely changes his mind about what his business life is all about. When you see it you really see how the girl has made him look at himself and change himself. It’s very moving,” said Wolfe.
Oh, after he started work on the play Wolfe finally saw the ending of the movie.
“Wow, what a finish!” he said.
State Theatre New Jersey presents four performances of Pretty Woman, the Musical - Saturday, October 7 at 2:00pm & 8:00pm; and Sunday, October 8 at 1:00pm & 6:00pm. Click here for more information or to purchase tickets. State Theatre is located at 15 Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
