The play that James Franco ordered to be shut down in 2016
Admittedly, I don’t know the guy, but James Franco does give the impression of someone who would enjoy the fact that a theatre piece had been written all about him.
Not to get all parasocial on main here, but the star of Spider-Man, Pineapple Express, and 127 Hours appears to have somewhat of an ego. I mean, this is a man who, at the peak of his career, took time off to teach English and film at several prestigious colleges, before devoting years of his career to trying and mostly failing to adapt the work of William Faulkner.
That’s right. Novels that had alluded the greatest filmmaking minds of all time, all that they needed was the guy from Your Highness.
All this to say that in 2016, when a play popped up in the theatrical heartland of Cranston, Rhode Island, called James Franco and Me, if anyone was seemingly going to sit back and think, ‘Yes, finally, someone who sees me for the inspiration that I am,’ it was him.
Yet, this was not the case. Franco sent a cease and desist letter to the writer and lead actor, Kevin Broccoli, when it was announced that, after a successful run in Cranston, the play was set to have a run in New York City at the People’s Improv Theatre.
Naturally, this is a disappointment on so many levels. First off, because the play isn’t actually (really) about Franco himself, and at the very least, it’s not an insult to him personally or anything so crass as that. Secondly, the play actually sounds kind of good.
Written by Broccoli, the play sees a fictionalised version of its writer and actor sat in a hospital waiting room waiting for news of his father, who’s on his deathbed in a nearby ward. Shortly after the play begins, Broccoli looks up to find the Hollywood superstar sitting in the same waiting room. However, Franco seems to be there for no discernible reason. The two start chatting to pass the time and find themselves discussing life, art, cinema and the price of devoting your life to pop culture.
However, that was only half of the appeal. The real hook of the play was that at every single performance, Franco himself would be played by a different actor. One who had memorised the script, but otherwise hadn’t done any more work with Broccoli about finding the character or rehearsed with him, and thus, viewers would get a whole new interpretation of the character each night. These actors, as varied as they were, ranged from a 17-year-old boy to a 50-year-old woman, and the play was very well received as a result.
However, Franco, or at least his team, didn’t see the funny side. They threatened legal action if the play went ahead, and the New York run of the play was cancelled. One more night of the play was held in Cranston under the name ____ And Me, seemingly as one last hurrah. However, after a long back and forth between Broccoli and Franco’s legal team, a compromise was found. The run at the People’s Improv Theatre could go ahead in 2018, but with a change to the name.
James Franco and Me: An Unauthorised Satire premiered as part of FringeNYC in October 2018 – if Franco were half the artist he claims to be, he would have been the very first actor to portray Franco in the show.
Alas, he was not.