March 30, 1986|By Betty Goodwin. Copyright 1986 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.
LOS ANGELES — It looks like an ordinary studio set, yet what goes on within its three walls is anything but ordinary. Like so many billiard balls, idaes are caroming back and forth between actors. The director is laughing the loudest of all at his own inventions. And the writers are huddling over their third revision of the script that afternoon with the cameras set to roll in just a couple of hours.
The creative process that has turned ``Cheers`` (8 p.m. Thursdays on NBC- Ch. 5) into one of the toasts of television and among this season`s half-dozen top programs in the A.C. Nielsen ratings, is almost a textbook example of how to keep a hot show hot. Now in its fourth season, ``Cheers``-- which takes its name from the neighborhood Boston bar where the lives of its four employees and a couple of regulars interact--owes its success as much to the ongoing inventiveness of its creators and writers as to the ensemble interplay between its cast members.
Watching a scene in rehearsal involving a simple kiss between Sam and Diane, the show`s sparring, on-again-off-again lovers played by Ted Danson and Shelley Long, reveals the imaginative machinery in motion. When the rehearsal began, the script called for Diane, the pretentiously intellectual barmaid, to impulsively kiss Sam, the bar`s owner and a former alcoholic, after a wonderful evening out together. However, as Long explained, ``We all felt it didn`t quite work. It was no one person`s idea--it`s always a combination.``
Long then suggested dropping her purse so both characters could reach to pick it up and accidentally kiss. The show`s director, James Burrows, watched as she and Danson fumbled with the purse, then Burrows commented, ``How about `La Boheme`?`` He was alluding to the moment in the Puccini opera where two lovers reach in search of a dropped key and their hands meet. So, with the addition of a little ``La Boheme,`` the kiss was revised.
``You have to have an environment where your juices can flow,`` Long said later. ``You`ve got a lot of talent in this circle--one idea spurs another idea.``
Yet, even when they are out of character, there are comedic sparks among the actors. During the kissing scene, when Danson was on the floor reaching for the purse, Long ordered him teasingly, ``On all fours--you`ll like that, won`t you, Ted!`` Later, when the clowning around began to get out of hand Danson shouted: ``Director, direct her!``
The quest for freshness and spontaneity in the brewing of each weekly episode continues to challenge the show`s creators, brothers Les and Glen Charles and Burrows. The very sense of not knowing precisely what`s next may have a lot to do with the effervescence of the series.
In some cases, unexpected plot detours have been forced upon the show, such as the death last year of Nicholas Colasanto, the actor who portrayed one of the establishment`s bartenders and its beloved ``coach.`` His demise last year was woven into story lines, and this season his chores behind the bar have been taken over by a naive country youth (played by Woody Harrelson).
But more often, story twists occur spontaneously. ``Sometimes in the middle of the week we can put changes into scripts that aren`t working which can completely turn a charcter`s life around,`` Charles explained.
Even now, the relationship between Sam and Diane, which has evolved from animal attraction to consummation to separation, is something of a mystery to its creators. In May, at the end of this season, there will be a three-part cliffhanger revolving around the introduction of a new love interest for Sam, but there is still no decision on how far his relationship with her will go. The script for the final episode is now in its third draft and there will no doubt be four or five more versions.
``We definitely know that there is going to be a triangle, a pretty hot little triangle,`` Charles said, but the outcome will depend on ``how we react when it`s on its feet, or possibly we will leave it ambiguous so the audience won`t know how it ends, and we won`t know.``
Originally, NBC gave Burrows and the Charleses a commitment for a 13-week series based on their work together on ``Taxi.`` Les and Glen Charles were the producers of this situation comedy, and Mr. Burrows, the son of the late playwright and director Abe Burrows, had directed 75 episodes. All three men had worked their way up the ranks of MTM Productions, where the craft of filming television comedy before live audiences flourished; they agreed that they too would film their own series the same way.
``The very first thing we had in mind was the setting,`` said Les Charles. ``After working on `Taxi,` where the whole concept of the series was a bunch of characters in a place that they wanted to get out of``--the taxi garage--``for a change of pace, we wanted to do the opposite, have setting people like to be in.``
