By Matthew Lombardo
Rob Ruggiero (Director); Valerie Harper, Brian Hutchison, Michael Mulheren.
Adrian W. Jones (Sets),William Ivey Long (Costumes), Ken Billington (Lighting), Michael Hooker and Peter Fitzgerald (Sound), Charles LaPointe (Wigs), Arthur Siccardi and Patrick Sullivan (Production Supervisors).
Lyceum Theater, 149 West 45th Street, Manhattan, Saturday March 27th 2010.
I attended “Looped,” a play about Tallulah Bankhead, starring Valerie Harper, with my usual determination to find a seat from which I could exit swiftly in the event of a disaster.
Judging by the vicious reviews the play had received in which it and its leading actress were described as if they were secondary attractions in an embalming museum, I would need a Plan B which in my case frequently takes the form of a moderately priced Manhattan at the Algonquin Hotel.
Imagine my surprise to find not only the house packed to the rafters with a rapt audience which howled with laughter for two and a half hours and gave a thunderous ovation at the end, but a small cast of the strongest Broadway actors I have seen in several years, and a leading lady (Valerie Harper a.k.a. Rhoda) whose expert stage craft was exceeded only by her presence in the form of Miss Tallulah Bankhead.
Contrary to the reviews, the character of Miss Bankhead was entirely three dimensional and totally lacked the element of caricature. This was due to Valerie Harper’s superb technical acting skills and her authentic commitment to the role. She found everything about the character that was vulnerable as well as tough, tedious as well as amusing, and sober as well as intoxicated. Naturally, there were plenty of Bankhead’s infamous one liners, but they were tossed off as the eccentric character’s perfectly logical responses to the circumstances in which the play takes place. In fact, from the beginning, the character of Bankhead was communicated to the audience as a woman requiring an explanation, as well as a background by which her public persona could be off-set, balanced and ultimately understood.
The critics were right when they said as they did with one scornful voice that the play would appeal to that generation of movie fans who spend their lives watching “Lifeboat” and proving the truth of Miss Bankhead’s notorious statement that she only ever met people who “want to f**k me or be me.” There they were at the ornate Lyceum Theatre: rows of now elderly men who, thirty years ago, were the exotic strangers in the shadows, former objects of desire who now resembled Karl Lagerfeld, to various degrees. But behind them and above them and beside them was the inevitable Bridge and Tunnel crowd from New Jersey and Westchester and White Plains, along with another enormous crowd of young theatre goers who would have had no congenital knowledge of Bankhead. She made her last film shortly before her death almost 45 years ago, decades before these people were born, yet they were leading the cheers and laughter.
One such person sat beside me and like almost everyone else was incapable of silent concentration. “Oh no!” he yelled. “Oh Jesus,” he hissed and “oh my goodness gracious” was his occasional and somewhat eccentric median remark. In between he simply roared with laughter. I myself relapsed into a permanent snigger, being far too lazy to laugh out loud as doing so for so long would have been exhausting. At the end, after many curtain calls, this heterogeneous crowd fell into the street chattering with the sort of bonhomie induced by sharing an exceptionally rewarding performance.
So much for the critics. Yet, inevitably, it was announced yesterday that “Looped” would close on Sunday, April 11 after barely 55 performances. Full houses of roaring, appreciative, theatre goers who depart in a tiddly state of euphoria are not enough to provide the advance bookings that keep a show afloat on Broadway, and advance bookings respond to good reviews.
The reviews of this play were not only mean and nasty; they were wrong. The play was not an anachronistic re-hash of a camp stereotype more suited to drag cabaret. Valerie Harper was not a fading TV star trying to turn a Pasadena Playhouse success into a Broadway spectacular and the script was not a one dimensional litany of oft-quoted one liners. If anything, thanks to Valerie Harper’s performance, the play was not really about Tallulah Bankhead, but about how the innocence and vulnerability of each individual can be manipulated or nurtured by others. It touched the audience, who loved it. Where are the New York critics coming from when they not only condemn it but following the announcement of its early closing take the trouble to print further condemnatory notices about it, daring people to attend its last week?
These elitists who determine what stays and what goes on Broadway are not only malevolent; they are duplicitous. It is not uncommon for them to bestow Tony Awards on plays they have previously ordered out of existence, and it would not be in the least bit surprising if that happens to “Looped,” which has all the characteristics of a Tony nominee. Stay tuned. You heard it here first.
Watch Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead in "Looped" :
Rob Ruggiero (Director); Valerie Harper, Brian Hutchison, Michael Mulheren.
Adrian W. Jones (Sets),William Ivey Long (Costumes), Ken Billington (Lighting), Michael Hooker and Peter Fitzgerald (Sound), Charles LaPointe (Wigs), Arthur Siccardi and Patrick Sullivan (Production Supervisors).
Lyceum Theater, 149 West 45th Street, Manhattan, Saturday March 27th 2010.
Judging by the vicious reviews the play had received in which it and its leading actress were described as if they were secondary attractions in an embalming museum, I would need a Plan B which in my case frequently takes the form of a moderately priced Manhattan at the Algonquin Hotel.
Imagine my surprise to find not only the house packed to the rafters with a rapt audience which howled with laughter for two and a half hours and gave a thunderous ovation at the end, but a small cast of the strongest Broadway actors I have seen in several years, and a leading lady (Valerie Harper a.k.a. Rhoda) whose expert stage craft was exceeded only by her presence in the form of Miss Tallulah Bankhead.
Contrary to the reviews, the character of Miss Bankhead was entirely three dimensional and totally lacked the element of caricature. This was due to Valerie Harper’s superb technical acting skills and her authentic commitment to the role. She found everything about the character that was vulnerable as well as tough, tedious as well as amusing, and sober as well as intoxicated. Naturally, there were plenty of Bankhead’s infamous one liners, but they were tossed off as the eccentric character’s perfectly logical responses to the circumstances in which the play takes place. In fact, from the beginning, the character of Bankhead was communicated to the audience as a woman requiring an explanation, as well as a background by which her public persona could be off-set, balanced and ultimately understood.
The critics were right when they said as they did with one scornful voice that the play would appeal to that generation of movie fans who spend their lives watching “Lifeboat” and proving the truth of Miss Bankhead’s notorious statement that she only ever met people who “want to f**k me or be me.” There they were at the ornate Lyceum Theatre: rows of now elderly men who, thirty years ago, were the exotic strangers in the shadows, former objects of desire who now resembled Karl Lagerfeld, to various degrees. But behind them and above them and beside them was the inevitable Bridge and Tunnel crowd from New Jersey and Westchester and White Plains, along with another enormous crowd of young theatre goers who would have had no congenital knowledge of Bankhead. She made her last film shortly before her death almost 45 years ago, decades before these people were born, yet they were leading the cheers and laughter.
One such person sat beside me and like almost everyone else was incapable of silent concentration. “Oh no!” he yelled. “Oh Jesus,” he hissed and “oh my goodness gracious” was his occasional and somewhat eccentric median remark. In between he simply roared with laughter. I myself relapsed into a permanent snigger, being far too lazy to laugh out loud as doing so for so long would have been exhausting. At the end, after many curtain calls, this heterogeneous crowd fell into the street chattering with the sort of bonhomie induced by sharing an exceptionally rewarding performance.
So much for the critics. Yet, inevitably, it was announced yesterday that “Looped” would close on Sunday, April 11 after barely 55 performances. Full houses of roaring, appreciative, theatre goers who depart in a tiddly state of euphoria are not enough to provide the advance bookings that keep a show afloat on Broadway, and advance bookings respond to good reviews.
The reviews of this play were not only mean and nasty; they were wrong. The play was not an anachronistic re-hash of a camp stereotype more suited to drag cabaret. Valerie Harper was not a fading TV star trying to turn a Pasadena Playhouse success into a Broadway spectacular and the script was not a one dimensional litany of oft-quoted one liners. If anything, thanks to Valerie Harper’s performance, the play was not really about Tallulah Bankhead, but about how the innocence and vulnerability of each individual can be manipulated or nurtured by others. It touched the audience, who loved it. Where are the New York critics coming from when they not only condemn it but following the announcement of its early closing take the trouble to print further condemnatory notices about it, daring people to attend its last week?
These elitists who determine what stays and what goes on Broadway are not only malevolent; they are duplicitous. It is not uncommon for them to bestow Tony Awards on plays they have previously ordered out of existence, and it would not be in the least bit surprising if that happens to “Looped,” which has all the characteristics of a Tony nominee. Stay tuned. You heard it here first.
Watch Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead in "Looped" :
No comments:
Post a Comment