Groucho Marx impersonator brings zany one-man show to Minnesota

Does Groucho Marx still matter? You bet your life he does.

The best case for his relevance is Frank Ferrante’s “An Evening With Groucho,” which the 61-year-old actor will deliver three times in Minnesota, starting Wednesday at Crooners Supper Club.

The one-man show has aired on PBS stations in the past, but each performance is unique because Ferrante dedicates a third of his stage time to mixing it up with the audience, ad-libbing with the kind of quick wit that would make his hero proud.

Ferrante, who has been channeling Marx since 1985, chatted about the late comedy legend via Zoom last week from a wardrobe closet in his Los Angeles home.

Q: How would you explain Groucho Marx to someone who has never heard of him?

A: To me, he was the face of American comedy. The greatest at combining verbal and physical humor. It was a 72-year-old career that included stage, films, radio and TV. He never left the scene.

Q: I grew up on Bugs Bunny and Hawkeye Pierce, both of whom were clearly influenced by Groucho. Do you notice more contemporary examples?

A: Groucho said things we can only dream about saying. You can see that when comics like Nikki Glaser shock and surprise us. All the roasts that are popular today come from Groucho’s antiestablishment approach. Barry Humphries' Dame Edna is one of the greatest characters that ever existed. The way I feel about Groucho is the way I feel about Barry.

Q: What’s the last TV show or movie that made you laugh?

A: I’m catching up on “Catastrophe.” Sharon Horgan wrote it and stars in it. She’s holding up a mirror to society, which is what great comedy writing and characters do. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

Q: In 1921, the Marx Brothers were the first act to play the Orpheum Theatre here in Minneapolis. What kind of show did the audiences see back then?

A: I have the first photo of Groucho in a mustache, and it was when he doing that show. They played Minneapolis countless times. Those would have been big spectacles, like 3½ hours long. Pretty much what you see in the films, but more musicalized versions with Harpo on harp and Chico on piano. Margaret Dumont would be there. They’d be laugh riots that people would flock to see. The Marx Brothers were a good get.

Q: Which of their films would you recommend newbies start off with?

A: I like “Horse Feathers” and “Duck Soup.” I think I would do “Horse Feathers” first. Those first five Paramount films are them at their most chaotic, irreverent and antisocial. There’s not a lot of musical interludes. Then I would look at “You Bet Your Life” to see how facile his mind remained in his middle years.

Q: I was surprised to read that Groucho was friends with Elton John and Alice Cooper.

A: He liked all kinds of music. He could appreciate Alice and Elton as vaudevillians. He took George Burns and Jack Benny to see Alice Cooper. But he could also see the brilliance in someone like Elton. I think he was open-minded. He never got past the sixth grade, so he was always educating himself. He had multiple subscriptions to magazines and newspapers. His son told me that he kept a dictionary in the glove compartment of his car because he was always working on his vocabulary.

Q: What’s the secret to doing a good impersonation of Groucho?

A: Information is key. I know him as well as anyone could who wasn’t related to him.

Q: Let’s say you couldn’t do Groucho anymore. Who would be your next choice for a one-man show?

A: I’ve had a nice mix of roles in my life. I did a one-man show on George S. Kaufman (co-wrote several Marx Brothers musicals and “You Can’t Take It With You”) back in the late ’90s. It had a very limited appeal, but I did it because of my respect for him. He was being forgotten.

Q: You’ve played Groucho over 3,000 times. What keeps you motivated?

A: The interaction with the audience keeps it fresh. I feel like I have to prove something every time I do it. Once I’m up there, there’s nothing more thrilling. It’s like someone has flipped a switch. I became good friends with Hal Holbrook (he did his one-man Mark Twain show over 2,000 times). He wrote me a beautiful letter about a year before he died in which he urged me to keep going. He said that even if I do it just once a year, I can say I played him for decades.

When: 7 p.m. Wed.

Where: Crooners Supper Club, 6161 Hwy. 65 NE., Fridley.

Tickets: $54.62.

When: 7 p.m. March 8.

Where: New London-Spicer High School Performing Arts Center, 101 4th Av. SW., New London, Minn.

Tickets: $30.

When: March 9

Where: Memorial Auditorium Performing Arts Center, 714 13th St., Worthington, Minn.

Tickets: $30-$35

For purchase and more information, visit eveningwithgroucho.com