Reviewed by David Spencer
[Originally, I reviewed The Beebo Brinker Chronicles alongside
The Ritz, as
the original, limited run of the first coincided with the revival of the
second, and in some ways they seemed a matched set -- and you can read the
original review here. What follows very
closely resembles the original text of the first notice’s Beebo section, with minor
changes to adapt it as a stand-alone review and discuss a cast change.]
To understand the significance of
The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, you have to understand the significance of novelist Ann Bannon, the pseudonymous by-line of Ann
Weldy. In the
late 50s and early 60s, she wrote a series of novels that examined the
contemporary lives of lesbians: the closeted ones, the out ones, the ones
making the decision to leave marriages and claim their homosexuality, the ones
who arranged partnerships of convenience with gay men, the better to raise
families in mainstream society...and she did this without the pall of shame or
the cynicism of cheap-thrill titillation. (Though Ms. Bannon has admitted that,
trapped in an unsatisfying marriage, as she was at the time she wrote the
books, she projected a good deal of fantasy and yearning into them.) Oh,
indeed, in style and narrative energy they certainly held their own as
paperback originals (there they were on the racks with the same suggestive
covers as the Gold Medal noir thrillers with which they shared the imprint, and among the
bestselling books in the line), but Bannon's were nonetheless the first novels
that validated both the secret and not-so-secret lesbian communities; indeed,
for some women, these were the books that quite literally gave them permission
to feel good about themselves. And Beebo Brinker, a tough, butch lesbian with a
more vulnerable nature than she cares to put on display, is a character who
appears in all the books.
Any
dramatization of them requires a subtle, difficult, balancing act of elements. Remember,
Ms. Bannon's books were a product of their era and a certain amount of
sensationalistic discovery came with the territory (the same kind that informs
issue-driven TV and movies of the era as well, where any victory by a Rod
Serling [Requiem for a Heavyweight] or a Paddy Chayefsky [Marty] or an Abby Mann [Judgment at
Nuremberg] was
accompanied by the sound of a taboo breaking). Director Leigh Silverman has opted for a playing style
commensurate with melodrama of the period-pitched slightly higher than realism,
the dialogue paced slightly faster than normal speech-mixed in with a little
old-fashioned soap opera sensibility.
Given
this choice, there are two usual ways in which she might have skewed the
production: toward parody or toward pastiche (by which I mean dedicated,
pointed emulation). But somehow, interestingly, Ms. Silverman has managed both,
without the one devaluing the other, sometimes alternately, at times
simultaneously. For the most part she allows the somewhat more innocent
melodrama to speak for itself, so that we always take the characters, and their
plight, seriously. Although every now and again, Ms. Silverman kicks things
into an even higher gear still, by way of winking at the audience that she knows that we know how overblown certain
expressed sentiments are. (The afoementioned melodrama includes the young
lesbian new to NY [Autumn Dornfeld], looking for love with straight women who remind her of
her early one true love-the love who left her to get married; and that one true
love [Marin Ireland], who, unbeknownst to her former lover, is obsessing just as much
about what she lost, and looking to get out of a marriage for which she holds
no passion.)
For
my money, I wonder -- merely wonder, mind -- if the delivery might all have
been taken down a notch. Even in the scenes where, no pun intended, the drama
is played straight. It seems to me that the script by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman (which adapts key threads of
three Bannon novels -- I Am a Woman, Woman in the Shadows, Journey to a Woman -- into a brisk,
intermissionless 90 minutes) doesn't really need the nod of commentary or even
a playing style that's quite such a self-aware homage, because the tone and
tenor of the period need no goosing to emerge from the text in relief. One
might argue that a latter-day script in this mold demands that a knowing
perspective be present on the surface, but I'm not so sure. It might risk some
unintentional laughter to let the text be that exposed, but given the reaction
of the audience I attended with, I think the characters and story are strong
enough that such laughter could only be affectionate and understanding.
Indeed,
though, even with things played hotter, the cast of six -- also including
downtown gay-theatre mainstay David Greenspan as a middle aged bachelor tired
of "the lifestyle" and looking to settle down and raise a family; Bill
Dawes and Carolyn
Baeumler as
various types, straight and gay; and of course Jenn Colella as the eponymous Beebo -- assay
it all with sensitivity, real-stakes sincerity and Swiss-watch precision. (It's
interesting to note, too, that Ms. Colella -- not unlike her predecessor in the
4th Street limited engagement, Anna Foss Wilson -- is somewhat more petite and
compact than the formidable six-foot tall butch powerhouse described in the
novels, described onstage too in transitional narrative lifted from Ms.
Bannon's prose; but the play doesn't change its description to suit the
actress; rather the production lets her create her own bigness through performance,
in the kind of magical collusion between actor and audience that can only
happen in the theatre. I will say that the excellent Ms. Colella has to work
her archetype a bit harder than Ms. Wilson in the opening minutes during which
she establishes her territory, for the simple reason that her speaking voice
isn’t as deep or as resonant. And because the archetype is so stark and iconic,
the difference is an interesting study in the art of casting.)
The
previous off-off Broadway run sold out even before opening. That's a testament
to Ms. Bannon. The transfer now at 37 Arts is open-ended And that's a testament
to the production. And to a segment of the audience that has needed to claim
their own mainstream territory for a long time...
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