What’s It Like Playing Bob Mackie While Wearing His Costumes?

Performers

Songwriters

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It would be impossible to tell the story of Cher without including Mackie. The 79-year-old designer has been crafting the star’s jaw-dropping looks for more than half a century, from her early days as a TV funny lady on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, to her triumph as an Oscar-winning actress in Moonstruck, to her pop diva domination of MTV. (Because of Cher’s many incarnations, three different performers play her at different stages: Stephanie J. Block, Teal Wicks and Micaela Diamond.) But while Berresse as Mackie gets to quip the light fantastic, dancing around color-coordinated racks of glorious clothes while spouting one-liners, he insists he’s playing a character, not doing an impersonation.

“There’s a big difference between Bob Mackie the character in the show and Bob Mackie the person in real life,” Berresse says. “Cher, Sonny, Gregg Allman, Georgia Holt — so many of the other characters were performers. Bob is not, so to have a singing and dancing version of him is already an alternate universe. He’s an interesting dichotomy: You would think when you look at his clothes that he would be an out-there personality, but he’s a pretty demure guy. In fact, in my first fitting with him, he told me, ‘I would never wear anything you’re wearing as me.’ I can’t go full-blown Paul Lynde — it wouldn’t be right to play him that way. It’s important to me to capture his wit and mischief and joy, especially his joy. I was lucky enough to give a toast to Bob in his honor recently. I said, ‘When I was a little boy, the words Bob Mackie were more than a name; they were a magical incantation, like abracadabra. When you hear it, you’re flooded with color and light.’ To finally know the man is humbling.”

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Now with The Cher Show, he has graduated to character actor, turning in three distinct performances as men who helped change the trajectory of the title icon’s life. In addition to Mackie, Berresse plays a misogynistic TV director (a composite character) and the late Oscar-nominated auteur Robert Altman, who gave Cher her first dramatic role in Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, initially , then on film.

“No one knows it’s me — I guess people don’t read their Playbills!” says Berresse, who looks completely transformed as Altman with a gray wig and fake paunch. “Stephanie and I love doing that scene. It’s one of the moments when it becomes about two actors and a ghost light in a show that has so much thrilling production. It’s a relief for the audience to just see two actors talk to each other.”

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Berresse says that out of all the roles he’s played in his career, Altman is the one he most identifies with, which is fitting since he was also a director. “That is who I know myself to be inside — someone far less performative who is profoundly affected by his connections with people,” Berresse says. “I like that that scene is about him saying, ‘I see you’ to Cher. I feel like I’ve tried to do that in my life as a man being able to see people and encourage people. That’s a great gift to me that one scene, a theatricalized version of me. I can live fully inside a very private part of myself in a very public way.”

While Berresse is enjoying being back on stage in The Cher Show, directing seems to be his bigger passion these days. “As you get older, your life changes and your priorities shift,” he says. “Although I always loved performing, I don’t have the same need for that validation as I used to. It’s hard to direct and act simultaneously. It takes a lot of time to develop projects, and it took a while to get people to take me seriously as a director. I feel I can combine all of my talents as a director and foster a safe, constructive and inspiring working environment. To be able to create that for other actors makes me happy.”

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Top image: Michael Berresse.

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