INTERVIEW: Jordan Kai Burnett on the hilarity of Gilda Radner
Photo: Jordan Kai Burnett portrays Gilda Radner in Gene & Gilda. Photo courtesy of Jenny Anderson / Provided by Richard Hillman PR with permission.
Gene & Gilda, the two-hander by Cary Gitter, has had quite the journey to its current off-Broadway home at 59E59 Theaters in Midtown Manhattan. The show, directed by Joe Brancato, began life at the Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point, New York, and then transferred to the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And now it has set up shop in Manhattan, offering audience members the chance to learn about the love and life of Gene Wilder (Jonathan Randell Silver) and Gilda Radner (Jordan Kai Burnett), two comedians who go down in history as some of the best.
Burnett and Silver have been with the show since its inception. There are fond memories of the early days when they were just getting the play off its feet.
“The Barn at Stony Point is kind of this magical place that sort of makes you feel like you are back in a 1930s movie where they say, ‘Let’s put on a show in a barn,'” Burnett said in a recent phone interview. “I got an email from my manager a few months prior to that, asking if I had any interest in playing Gilda Radner. I think I responded with something like, ‘Well, that’s the silliest question you’ve ever asked me because you know I want to play Gilda more than anything.’ And so the journey really started at my first audition for Joe and then a callback where I met Jonathan, so by the time we got to our first rehearsal … it felt like there was something special there already.”
For Burnett, it’s important that Gene & Gilda doesn’t come off as a series of impressions. The two actors are trying to dig deeper on who these two people were and the love they shared in their relationship.
“We have to honor the fact that Gilda is Gilda, so I want to play her with honesty and sincerity and all of the things that we love about her without doing an impression of her,” Burnett said. “But I think it’s also important to … bring a little bit of myself to it because, like I said, I’m not doing an impression. I’m doing my interpretation of Gilda. I think it’s really important that the impressions of her characters, Roseanne Roseannadanna and Emily Litella, are spot on, but because the show plays with the world that we didn’t really get to see, like Gene and Gilda sitting on their couch in their house in Hollywood, I think it asks for a little bit of malleability.”
Burnett has always been a big fan of the comedian’s style of hilarity. Radner is perhaps best known for her work as an original cast member on Saturday Night Live, and Burnett has always looked up to her for the characters she portrayed on the NBC series.
“I think as a Jewish comedian, there are certain staples you grow up with,” Burnett said. “And Gilda being who she was — this very loud, very excellent, brilliant [comedian], who happened to be Jewish and who happened to be a really funny woman in a time when there was a lot of ‘Are women funny?’ energy in the world — I’ve always been a huge fan, even as a kid. So the first DVD I ever stole back when Netflix used to send DVDs out, the first one I ever kept was The Best of Gilda Radner.”
Radner’s life was sadly cut short after her struggles with ovarian cancer. She died young, but her legacy continues to this day.
“I mourned how early in her life we lost her because she accomplished so much as a funny person,” Burnett said. “Imagine a female comedian in the world who just gets to be thought of as a comedian. This group of people that she came up with, the John Belushis, the Chevy Chases, the Bill Murrays … I think that there was a lot of respect for how funny she actually was.”
The actor added: “It’s so important to acknowledge her because without her we don’t get any of the incredible comedians that have come after her. We don’t get the Kristen Wiigs and the Sarah Silvermans and the Kate McKinnons.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Gene & Gilda, starring Jordan Kai Burnett and Jonathan Randell Silver, continues at 59E59 Theaters in Midtown Manhattan through Sept. 7. Click here for more information and tickets.
