FORTUNATO'S GOLDEN TICKET
Actor primed for highly imaginative role in 'Willy Wonka'
Actor Sean Fortunato has not been getting much sleep lately. By day, at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, he has been rehearsing the title role in "Willy Wonka," the family musical by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley based on Roald Dahl's classic children's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- a story that already has served as the inspiration for two major movies, including one starring Gene Wilder (1971) and another starring Johnny Depp (2005).
By night, at the same theater (at least until it finished its run last Sunday), he was all but stealing the show with every brief, loony appearance as Eddie Philpot, a fez-wearing, Marx Brothers-style vaudeville clown in writer Ron West's wildly souped up take on Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors."
And then there is that new arrival at home. Fortunato and his wife, actress-choreographer Linda Parsons, have been adjusting to life with their first child, Asher Finn, now 3 months old. The actor's pals now tell him they only wish Asher were old enough to see him play "the candy man."
I've been watching Fortunato, 36, for years, and invariably am delighted by the ease with which he slips from musicals to comedy to tragedy. (Earlier this season, he played Othello's badly wronged associate, Cassio, also at Chicago Shakespeare.) Not only is he convincing in all these genres, but he always is full of surprises -- something unexpected about the way this actor makes himself look and move that leaves an indelible footprint, whether swaying on the deck of a ship (in a Writers' Theatre production of Tom Stoppard's "Rough Crossing"), getting fired up as the Jewish dad in Chaim Potok's "The Chosen" (also at Writers'), or playing the cynical journalist in "Brigadoon" (at the Marriott Theatre).
"As a kid, I was very uncomfortable in my body," the actor confessed. "But I found freedom through the characters I played, and that freed me up to take risks and use my body more. Now, finding the physicality of characters helps me find where they live."
In preparing for "Willy Wonka," Fortunato did take a peek at the Wilder film around audition time, and he'd seen the recent Depp remake soon after its release.
"But that was it. Though this show is somewhat closer to the Wilder version in my mind, I knew the character ultimately had to come from me and my personality, free of any impressions or tributes. I did go back to the book, which I think is a lot less dark than either film. My sense of Willy Wonka is that he is mischievous, but not so much threatening as playful.
"I see Willy as a man with many childlike qualities -- very excitable, and excited about everything he does. And he's a very positive person, though terrible things do happen, and he is not concerned with consequences. My favorite line in the show is from one of the songs: 'Wanna change the world? There's nothing to it.' It's his motto, and I love it because for him everything is about the imagination; he gets upset whenever he hears the word 'impossible.'"
For director Joe Leonardo, who is staging this 65-minute musical, Fortunato is "a very talented actor with an extraordinary ability to give even the most negative, ironic or cynical line a certain twinkle, and that's crucial for Willy Wonka."
Fortunato, who grew up in Connecticut, moved to Chicago after college at the urging of his best friend from high school, who had attended Northwestern University.
"That was 1993, and I stayed for one year, and the next, and, well, here I am."