'Hotel Portofino's' Mark Umbers paved the way for hit 'Merrily'

LOS ANGELES – Before “Merrily We Roll Along” became one of the biggest hits on Broadway, “Hotel Portofino” star Mark Umbers was part of a previous cast that reexamined the show that flopped in 1981.

Convinced there was a hit inside a jumbled story, director Maria Friedman worked with composer Stephen Sondheim to iron things out.

The result – which premiered in London in 2012 – starred Umbers as Franklin Shepard, a writer who abandons his composing career (and friends) to become a Hollywood movie producer. Told in reverse, the musical found its footing, Umbers says, when it cast older actors in the roles. In the original (which lasted 16 performances on Broadway), actors in their teens and 20s played the parts. That meant they didn’t have the experience to understand what the older years were all about.

While working on the show, Umbers got to ask Sondheim questions about his character’s motivation.

“He was incredibly gracious and very kind to me about it,” Umbers says. The role was loosely based on Sondheim’s life “and I was kind of playing him in a weird sort of way.”

Natascha McElhone embraces a world of change in 'Hotel Portofino'

At one point, Umbers played the piano as the character “and I could see him in the background. I was so nervous…and I messed up.”

Sondheim didn’t care. “It was one of the great thrills of my career to meet him and talk with him. There were lots of emails.”

The show was a hit in London, transferred to a larger theater and was eventually filmed for posterity.

When Friedman decided to do the show in New York (with Jonathan Groff in Umbers’ role), she introduced her British and American casts. Groff kept in touch throughout the experience. “He was great…and amazing,” Umbers says.

Never mind New York writers pretended the British production didn’t exist. “Some of us in London felt like we were being written out of America, which I understand, because it was a commercial hit.”

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Still, Umbers was in the room when where “Merrily’s” revision happened.

“The first sequence is set in Hollywood where he’s the producer of rubbish,” Umbers recalls. “I couldn’t get it; I was so uncomfortable in rehearsals. But once I knew what it was like to be that person, I realized he was part of a different culture.”

Tapping into Hollywood types he had met throughout his career (including an agent who said, “It must be amazing to be in a London theater where you get to meet the authors,” even though he had been doing the classics, including Shakespeare), Umbers latched on to Franklin Shephard and his ilk.

Now thriving in “Hotel Portofino” (as the caddish Cecil), Umbers says he’s longing for another play just to flex those muscles.

“I remember doing a Nativity play when I was about 5 or something playing a shepherd with a towel around my head. There was a room full of people staring at me and I was so horrified I walked off the stage.”

More theater, thankfully, followed. After roles in school plays, Umbers decided it was his career and looked to doing “small-to-medium-sized films…and they vanished.” Now, he’s writing the kind of films he’d like to see.

Television – like “Portofino” – affords him the time to write.

The series, he says, is a great way to indulge his interest in character. “You have tons of options. He can be a completely different character from one scene to the next.”

Cecil, he figures, will stick around even though actor and character have nothing in common.

“But I do understand where his sense of powerless comes from and what informs a lot of decisions he makes,” the 51-year-old Umbers says. “The world he was brought up to inherit has vanished and his wife is the one who owns the business. That leaves him very much at sea. That’s why he’s constantly trying to reach for things that will give him some kind of relevance.”

Not unlike a composer hoping to turn a flop into a hit.