“Just Dumb Luck”
Calvin
Trillin, the well-known humorist whose writing has been long associated
with The New Yorker, was married to a
wonderful woman named Alice Stewart
Trillin (1938-2001), about whom he often wrote, including a memoir called About Alice. That memoir is the basis for
a sweet and touching, if not particularly memorable, two-person play of the
same name now at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, where Leonard Foglia has
directed it for Theatre for a New Audience.  |
| Jeffrey Bean, Carrie Paff. Photo: Gerri Goodstein. |
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| Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Gerri Goodstein. |
About Alice
memorializes Alice’s too-brief life, which might have been briefer had she (a
nonsmoker) succumbed earlier to the lung cancer with which she was stricken in
1976. Trillin projects her as a near perfect person, whose professional talents
were accompanied by a wit that made her, in Trillin’s twist on the expected
reference, George Burns to his Gracie Allen. He insists that for someone like
him to marry someone like her was “just dumb luck.”
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| Jeffrey Bean, Carrie Paff. Photo: Gerri Goodstein, |
His account recalls their meeting at a party, their mutually
Jewish origins (her mother, both his parents), their lives together as man and
wife, their accomplished, socially aware daughters, Alice’s career achievements,
and, most significantly, her 25-year-battle with the on- again, off-again
scourge of cancer, about which experiences she wrote extensively. Ironically,
when she died, it was not from cancer itself but from the cumulative effects of
the radiation she’d received over the years.
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| Jeffrey Bean, Carrie Paff. Photo: Gerri Goodstein. |
It’s a familiar version of the kind of story we’ve
practically become inured to after years of movies and TV scripts describing
noble, exceptional people fighting fatal illness but never losing hope, being
brave even when staring death straight in the eye. And while it’s hard not to
keep your own eyes from tearing up at such courageous fortitude, especially if
you’ve witnessed a loved one’s suffering (as who hasn’t?), that alone shouldn’t
be why we praise the latest dramatization of such a struggle. After all, it’s
also likely that your cheeks get wet when you watch a commercial for the
Shriners Hospital, with its adorable handicapped children, or an ASPCA ad showing
one pitiable canine after the other.
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| Carrie Paff, Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
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| Jeffrey Bean, Carrie Paff. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
The general tone, though, is more that of a memorized recitation
than words spoken spontaneously. For all Bean’s appealing charm, his words have
a literary, not a natural cadence. Paff is more successful at sounding in the
moment but she too can’t always shake the sense that she’s performing a text
meant for reading, not speaking.
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| Carrie Paff, Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
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| Carrie Paff, Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
At one point, Trillin, explaining that Alice would often
critique his work, offers the following tongue-in-cheek exchange:
ALICE Is this meant to be funny?
CALVIN Well, maybe mildly amusing.
ALICE (As if turning over that idea in her head) Mildly
amusing . . .
CALVIN (Looking a bit concerned) How about wry? I’m often
described as wry. I’ve decided that wry means almost funny. But that’s fine, if
you think it might be wry. Wry is fine. I’d settle for wry.
ALICE (Again considering) Wry . . .
CALVIN Well, what did you think?
ALICE (With a straight face) I think this is very funny.
CALVIN You do? ALICE Yes, I do. One of the funniest things
you’ve ever written. (Suddenly smiling) Gotcha!
About Alice,
though, isn’t one of the funniest things Trillin has ever written. Nor, given its
subject matter, should it be. But where its humor is concerned, Alice’s original
assessments are pretty close to the mark.
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| Carrie Paff, Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
OTHER VIEWPOINTS:
Polonsky Shakespeare Center/Theatre for a New Audience
262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY
Through February 3
