Queer Places:
433 W 46th St, New York, NY 10036
Robert Sarkis Dahdah (March 8, 1926 – February 6, 2016)
directed several hits at Caffé Cino, the Cornelia Street hole in the wall
where the likes of Lanford Wilson and
Sam Shepard got their starts. But none was as
big, or is as well-remembered, as Dames at Sea, the Busby Berkeley musical
spoof that went on to a longer life at other downtown theatres and launched
the career of Bernadette Peters. Peters was doing summer stock theatre in
Pennsylvania when she was introduced to Dahdah by a choreographer who knew
them both. She was 18 at the time. The show was a mere 40 minutes at Caffe
Cino (Dahdah has found the script in the trash), but audiences loved it and it
ran for three months. It became Caffe Cino’s biggest hit. When it was moved to
another theater, Dahdah was replaced as director. Dahdah again turned to
parodying an earlier, more innocent style of entertainment when he directed,
produced and wrote (with Mary Boylan) Curley McDimple, a satire of the sunny
Shirley Temple movies of the 1930s. The musical contained rumba numbers, riffs
on Astaire and Rogers and Cab Calloway, and plenty of tap dancing. Peter again
starred, and the show was a whopping hit at the Bert Wheeler Theater in West
43rd Street, running more than two years. In 1978, he was again mining the
past for material with Boylan, presenting the “1920s romance with music,”
Clara Bow Loves Gary Cooper, at Theatre for the New City. In 1980 came Alias
Jimmy Valentine, “a ragtime musical,” again with Boylan.
Robert Sarkis Dahdah was born March 8, 1926, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His parents
were of Lebanese descent. When still a child, his family moved to Manhattan.
He served in World War II. In 1953, he was the head of The Empathy Group and
presented Christopher Fry’s The Boy With a Cart at the Seaman’s Church in
lower Manhattan. He also directed plays at Washington Square Theater. During
the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Mr. Dahdah occasionally took work as an extra in
films. His choices were lucky ones. He was a face in the crowd in Midnight
Cowboy, The French Connection, The Way We Were, Death Wish and The Godfather.
He was one of the theatregoers left aghast by the fake musical Springtime for
Hitler in the movie The Producers. One of his few credited roles was as a
Santa Claus in Three Days of the Condor.
Dahdah directed plays by several New York playwrights, including early works by Lanford Wilson,
Robert Patrick and
Robert Heide.
“I was very close to Robert Dahdah,” Heide said. “He directed my play ‘The Bed,’ which was a big thing at Caffe Cino. That was a year before he discovered Bernadette Peters.
“He lived in Hell’s Kitchen, but he was always down here,” Heide said of Dahdah. “He worked at La MaMa. He was ‘Mr. Off Broadway.’ ”
Magie Dominic, a writer who was part of the 1960s Off Broadway theater scene, said, “I have many personal memories of my friend Bob Dahdah. But my most cherished memory is that he was forever a courteous and supportive friend, and an honorable and true gentleman in a business where those traits are not always a given.” Similar to Heide, she said, “Bob’s apartment was on 46th St., but he spent his every waking hour on Cornelia St., or at La Mama or Theater for the New City.”
Robert Dahdah died February 6, 2016, at Calvary Hospital in The Bronx, The
Villager reported. He was 89.
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