Sans Captain

Toni Tennille takes on Victor/Victoria

by Matt Ashare

If you've been tuning into VH-1 with any regularity over the past couple of weeks, chances are you've noticed the teaser for a new rockumentary series the network is launching this month -- the one that wryly boasts the employment of powerful new "Where Are They Now"' technology to catch up with stars of the '70s. No surprise that one of the targets pictured in the ad is the Captain & Tennille, the husband-and-wife hitmaking duo who hosted their own Sonny and Cher-style variety show in the mid '70s. The Captain (a/k/a Daryl Dragon) has always kept a low profile -- that's his shtick. These days you'll most likely find him at the couple's home just north of Reno. Tennille, however, is much easier to locate. She's currently starring as the gender-bending lead in the first national touring production of the Blake Edwards/Henry Mancini Broadway hit musical Victor/Victoria, a show that's on its way to Boston's Colonial Theatre for a two-week run that begins December 29.

The first thing you notice about Toni Tennille is that she's very tall -- 5'11" to be exact. The second is that the cute blond girlie bob haircut of her youth has given way to a more refined if somewhat severe short-cropped cut well suited to a woman her age (55), not to mention practical for a person who has signed on to be a cross-dresser for the better part of a year -- a role played in both the 1982 film and the 1995 musical by Edwards's wife, Julie Andrews, who was replaced for the final six weeks of the Broadway run by, of all people, Raquel Welch. "My dream had been to take over for Julie in New York and finish out the run," Tennille admits. "I made an audition video of myself in the part and got it to Blake and [producer] Tony Adams, but I was too late. They had already signed on Raquel. I thought that was it. But they called and asked me to consider the national tour. Boy, I wanted the part, I just really didn't want to do a year of touring. But I took the leap because I really wanted to do the role."

Part of what attracted Tennille to the show was the fact that it features one of "the few tour-de-force roles" for a female lead. She was also moved by the theme of kindness and tolerance: "There's a lot of gay theming in the show, and I liked the idea that people who might come because they remember Captain & Tennille might, by watching the show, become a little more tolerant in their personal beliefs."

Besides, Tennille couldn't help noticing how well suited she is physically to play the part. "I'm really tall, I'm really thin, and I'm really flat-chested, so I don't have to wear a chest compressor," she offers. "Julie had to wear one because she's about 5'9" but she's big-busted. And Raquel, well, how the hell she did it I don't know. Vocally, although I'm a contralto and Julie's a soprano and the score was written for her, I can sing most of the tunes in her key. I've had to lower a couple of them a half-step, but she had pitched everything way down, which I assume was so that she'd sound more like a guy. The lovely thing is that I've been encouraged by Blake and by the director to make the part mine. I'm not playing her as an English soprano, because I ain't one. I'm playing her as an Alabama contralto, which is what I am."

Tennille is no stranger to theater or the music of Broadway. Her father was a big-band singer, and she got her start performing standards in a 16-piece big band while attending Auburn University in the '60s. She later met husband-to-be and Beach Boys keyboardist Daryl Dragon while staging her own Mother Earth, a Hair-style ecology-themed rock musical, at South Coast Repertory Theatre in Southern California in the early '70s. "I hired Daryl to play in the band in Mother Earth, and when that closed, he hired me to play in the Beach Boys with him."

Although the huge success of the Captain & Tennille kept Toni occupied as a singer and a songwriter for the better part of a decade, she returned to the music of Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart, and Irving Berlin in the '80s. "In 1984 I started performing standards with symphony orchestras, and I still usually sing with about eight orchestras a year." Her latest album is Tennille Sings Big Band (Honest Entertainment), and she's had roles in Mame, Show Boat, and an LA production of Stardust. But she hasn't abandoned the Captain & Tennille. "The year 2000 will be the 25th anniversary of our first hit -- `Love Will Keep Us Together' -- and of our marriage," she points out. "So I think we're going to have to do some sort of national tour as the Captain & Tennille."

Boston audiences, however, will have a chance to catch the Captain in action sooner. Tennille confirms that he's flying in for the New Year's Eve performance of Victor/Victoria and is planning to join his wife and the show's cast for a post-curtain-call sing-along of, yes, "Love Will Keep Us Together." Someone should probably give the folks at VH-1 a call.

Victor/Victoria will be at the Colonial Theatre December 29 through January 10. Call 931-2787 for tickets.