Pages from Perry’s ‘Diary’

In these days of unlimited Internet access, round-the-clock television and seemingly endless coverage of the entertainment-industrial complex, it would seem that nothing passes under the cultural radar for long. Which makes the story of Tyler Perry, superstar of the “urban theater” circuit while a virtual unknown to mainstream audiences, that much more astounding. With the opening of the film adaptation of his play “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” written by, produced and costarring (in three roles) Perry, all that is likely to change.

Pursuing the master theme of Perry’s work -- the need for forgiveness and moving forward -- “Diary” follows the self-awakening of a woman (Kimberly Elise) thrown out of the house when her rich, heartless husband (Steve Harris) takes up with another woman. Once she settles in with her grandmother (Perry, in drag) and pursues romance of her own with a hardworking bohemian (Shemar Moore), she finds herself back with her husband, caring for him after he is paralyzed in a shooting.

Initially inspired to write down his own experiences by an offhanded comment Oprah Winfrey made on her TV show, Perry moved in 1992 from his native New Orleans to Atlanta, where his plays began to attract an audience. With minimal advertising, relying largely on word of mouth and a now-massive mailing list, Perry has mounted and toured numerous plays since 1998, also selling videos, and amassed a devoted fan base and a rather sizable fortune.

Anyone looking for further testament to Perry’s success -- his play, “Madea Goes to Jail,” which he also starred in, recently sold out a string of performances at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood -- need only notice the enormous mansion featured as one of the main sets in “Diary.” It is Perry’s house. As well, Perry, who is easily taller than 6 feet, is escorted to an interview by a bodyguard significantly bigger than he is.

A movie became the logical next step. Which brought Perry into the world of Hollywood development.

“I met one studio,” Perry, 35, explains, “and the guy told me, ‘Black people go to church, they don’t go to movies.’ And I thought, I’m not going to be able to do this movie here, and I left.

“I went to another studio and started getting all these notes on my script -- change this, change that ....”

“I decided to finance it myself and put it on DVD. Then I get a call from Lions Gate, and they’re like, ‘What do we need to do to be in business with you?’ ” Skeptical at first, Perry had some demands about maintaining artistic control. “Once all of that was worked out it was, ‘Good, let’s do it.’ ”

Steve Pasternak, president of production at Lions Gate Films, said he had become aware of Perry after a package arrived containing a script and a video.

“It isn’t like we were tracking Tyler’s activities. He did so much from a grass-roots level, through his website, through the church, through word of mouth, that he completely slipped under the radar of the film industry. I got this package with a cover memo from William Morris saying something like Tyler has done 57 gazillion dollars in sales, something outrageous for someone I’d never heard of.

“I brought this with me to our management conference, and I asked everyone if they’d heard of him. I thought at least the home entertainment people would have heard of him. Then I started to ask African American people that I know, or employees here, and they all knew who he was. I thought, ‘We’re not in on this secret.’ ”

One of the possible hurdles in exposing Perry to a wider audience is that he considers himself a “man of faith,” and, contrary to much cultural product, there are numerous overt expressions of Christian belief throughout “Diary.” Though he does not consider himself evangelical, Perry is unabashed in espousing his religious convictions.

“I know being Christian, there are some people it’s going to turn off,” he says. “But it’s very important to me. I don’t make any apologies for it. It is what it is. I know the power of it.”

Though the recent example of “The Passion of the Christ” and the audience it tapped into must seem tantalizing to Hollywood studios, Pasternak contends that they have different plans for “Diary.”

“It’s rooted in the church,” he says, “but it’s not just about the church. We would like to tap into the church audience, but we don’t want that to be our exclusive audience. We want that to be just a part of the core audience. This film is different from ‘The Passion of the Christ’ because this film is just entertainment with a great message.”

At a recent Los Angeles performance of his latest play, “Madea Goes to Jail” -- which, having presold the tour, Perry wrote while filming “Diary” -- the sold-out audience seemed aware and energized regarding the film. Perry is using the current “Madea” tour to help promote the movie, screening the trailer and talking directly to the audience about it. Whether the film will move beyond this seemingly built-in audience is another matter.

“As far as mainstream audiences go,” Perry says, “I really just hope they will give it a chance and come at it with an open mind. If you’re looking to classify, you’re not going to get it. It’s not a comedy, it’s not a drama, it’s everything. When I was writing it, I was in a meeting at this studio and this lady asked me, ‘Why did this happen in the third act?’ and I was like, ‘What’s the third act?’ I don’t write from those experiences, I don’t understand the three-act structure and this needs to happen by this time. I just tell the story the way it feels to me.”

As to the question of whether Perry can break through to a bigger, mainstream audience, Pasternak is guardedly optimistic. “We’re not sure if we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg or the whole iceberg,” he explains. “If it’s the whole iceberg, we have a certain comfort level in that, but it’s not a slam-dunk, there is still a risk. If it’s just the tip of the iceberg, it’s a whole other story.”