The Story Behind The Photo—Hal Landon Jr. and “Green Icebergs”

This week’s Story Behind the Photo takes us inside one of SCR Founding Member Hal Landon Jr.’s favorite roles—as an Italian waiter in the 1994 world premiere of Green Icebergs by Cecilia Fannon.

Playing a waiter in Fannon’s romantic comedy that won the 1994 SCR California Playwrights Competition stretched Landon’s skill set beyond the stage—and beyond serving the soup.

“First, I had to learn to do an Italian accent. This involved many hours of listening to language tapes and working with a dialect coach,” he said. “Another issue was that I may have gotten a little too close to the character, because by the time we opened, I had to have the napkins folded in the kind of fancy way you find in expensive restaurants. So, I spent a few hours mastering napkin folding.”

Once Landon had napkin origami down, a bigger hurdle remained.

“The script called for the waiter to begin the play by facing the audience and delivering some important exposition while he ties his bow tie,” Landon said. “That’s right: no clip-on, no hooks and no mirror. Needless to say, this took a number of hours of trial and error to master. But by the first preview, I was able to tie a nice, neat bow.

“And then, the director (Founding Artistic Director David Emmes), informed me that my bow-tie tying was too distracting and the audience wasn’t listening to what I was saying. So I should cut the tying. I was naturally disappointed, but I understood.”

Landon, however, didn’t let this new skill go to waste. He continued to tie the bow tie in his dressing room.

“And yes, maybe I used a mirror,” he said.

In his Los Angeles Times review, Don Shirley described Landon’s character as “an omniscient moderator who anticipates every order, has a handy homily for every occasion (and) even counsels one of the characters in a scene away from the café.”

Green Icebergs ran Oct. 14-Nov. 20, 1994 on the Segerstrom Stage. Robert Brill designed the set, Ann Bruice designed the costumes, Tom Ruzika was the lighting designer, Michael Roth was the sound designer and music director and John Glore was the dramaturg.