62. JEZEBEL
AND ME
Earlier
this year the Atlantic Theater Company produced Craig Lucas’s THE LYING LESSON,
which dramatized a situation in which the eccentric movie star Bette Davis decided
to purchase a house in a small town in Maine. It was 1981, Davis was 73, and
her career was on the wane. Carol Kane played Davis in a doomed attempt to
capture the outsized star’s notable mannerisms of voice and gesture. This is
what I wrote:
A good deal of time is occupied with Davis reciting
Hollywood anecdotes, especially when she can push verbal pins into Joan
Crawford, her filmic rival in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE. Cinema buffs with
a taste for the campier efforts of Davis and Crawford’s twilight years might
enjoy these reminiscences, but the chances are they’d find them passé. Perhaps
if Carol Kane’s portrayal of Davis the diva were more authentic, the piece might
at least have had performative—if not dramaturgical—excitement, but, alas, all
that Ms. Kane shares with the flamboyantly dramatic movie star are large eyes
and short stature. Her voice, diction, gestures, and general behavior are entirely
wrong, and if you’re at all familiar with the original, you’ll be unable
throughout the otherwise monotonous proceedings to accept the performance on
its own terms, since without at least a believable replica of the original,
there’s nothing else to grab on to here.
Now,
Elizabeth Fuller’s autobiographical two-hander, ME AND JEZEBEL, originally
produced Off Broadway (15 performances at the Actors Theatre in 1994), has been
revived at the Snapple Theatre Center; those Bette Davis eyes, made even more prominent
by the huge black-rimmed eyeglasses she wore in her later years, are on view in
another unsuccessful stab at bringing the screen diva back to life. Much of what I wrote above can be applied to this endeavor, a dramatization by Ms. Fuller of her own best-selling book (ME AND JEZEBEL: WHEN
BETTE DAVIS CAME FOR DINNER . . . AND STAYED . . . AND STAYED . . . AND STAYED
. . AND . . .) about a time in 1985 when the 77-year-old actress, needing a
place to work on her memoirs during a New York hotel strike, stayed at Ms. Fuller’s
home in Westport, Connecticut, saying it would only be for a day or two, but
remaining for 32 days. Reportedly, the play has been performed over the past
two decades in Prague, Slovakia, Munich, Edinburgh, Warsaw, Athens, Sydney,
Melbourne, and Brazil.
Bette Davis’s flamboyant persona has
always attracted the attention of drag artists, so it is not surprising to note
that, in ME AND JEZEBEL, she is performed by a man, Kelly Moore. In the current
revival of THE SILVER CORD, at St. Clements, Mrs. Phelps, the leading
character, is also being played by a man, a highly distracting casting choice
for a role in a serious drama specifically written for a woman. In ME AND JEZEBEL,
Davis’s role is written to exploit her noted tics and purported fondness for
bitchy one-liners, the kind of things drag specialists love to play, although an
actress, Louise DuArt, noted for her celebrity impressions, played the part in
1994. (In fact, she replaced a man, Randy Allen, who became ill and passed
away.) Mr. Moore—who creates a passable enough
resemblance to Davis with makeup, wig, and costume—is far too feeble an actor
to sustain more than the most shallow level of believability. His attempts to
capture Davis’s distinctive accent, timing, and hand and body movements are
unconvincing; his breathing is erratic, he is physically awkward, and he seems unable
even to hold a cigarette correctly. It’s likely that the director, Marc S.
Graham (who staged the 1994 original), is to blame, but, except for one or two
instances, whenever Davis has to smoke, which—given her nicotine habit—is often,
Mr. Moore merely flicks his lighter and fake-lights his cigarette, then
fake-smokes it. (His costar, Ms. Fuller, does the same.) And when he pours himself
a drink, he fake-pours non-existent alcohol from an empty bottle, and fake-drinks
from an empty glass. This, of course, is the height of amateurism, and it
pervades too much of the performance.
Ms. Fuller plays herself. In the 1994 version, Ms. Fuller she did the same.
I assume she’s performed the role many times since but I will
refrain from commenting on her development as an actor.
Her play, despite its being based on
a true experience, seems designed to exploit all the familiar Davis-isms,
including the same tired Crawford references peppered throughout THE LYING LESSON.
Davis, like Sheridan Whiteside in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, is the demanding
celebrity guest who needs constant attention and turns the host’s home life
upside down. Ms. Fuller is a self-described Bette Davis idolator, so the
opportunity to be the star’s hostess, even at the expense of tension with Ms.
Fuller’s reluctant husband, is not to be missed. However, for all her sincerity,
her character seems uncomfortably sycophantic. There are, of course, heartwarming
moments, stemming partly from the efforts of Ms. Fuller (who claims psychic
abilities) to channel her late grandmother, Old Ma, and Davis’s late mother, Ruthie; the friendship
Davis forms with Fuller’s four-year-old son, Christopher; and a charming letter
of gratitude the star writes when she finally leaves. There is no coda about
any subsequent relationship between Davis, who died four years later, and Ms.
Fuller, and one suspects there was none.
The core event dramatized here will
be of some interest to those who remember Bette Davis’s contributions to screen
acting, and who share in the nostalgia for the golden age of Hollywood.
For serious theatre fans, however, they’d be better off revisiting Davis’s
great performances on TCM. JEZEBEL would be a good place to start.
