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Looped
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Allen, Harper
Photo by Craig Schwartz
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By Debbi K. Swanson
*Critic's Choice*
I'll admit it, Valerie Harper was never one of my favorite actresses. Until now.
Her portrayal as the bawdy, bruised and balls-out Tallulah Bankhead in the World Premiere of Matthew Lombardo's Looped at Pasadena Playhouse is astounding. Harper always had an edge I found irritating, though I still remember her delivering this TV line: "I don't know why I bother eating this. I should just apply it directly to my hips." As Tallulah would say, "Amen, sister."
From her take-no-prisoners entrance in full-fur regalia and sunglasses – though the play is set in the middle of a sweltering L.A. August day – Harper owns the show. And thankfully, Lombardo, who also wrote the hit Tea at Five about Kate Hepburn, has a knack for setting up Bankhead's notoriously pithy repartee that now seems like bumper stickers. Dorothy Parker had nothing on her. The evidence: "I had an imaginary friend who didn't like me very much." Of her sister Eugenia, who interrupts the session with a phone call from Morocco, "The old horse probably threw a shoe…She's a liar, thief, drug addict, occasional lesbian, but a good companion." And of herself, "Sure I have a drinking problem. Whenever I'm not drinking, honey, it's a problem!"
Her outrageously promiscuous behavior for her time, including affairs with men, women, and drugs of nearly every sort, makes today's bad girls look like tawdry trampy tarts of little consequence or style. Amateurs all – compared to the devilishly troubled Tallulah.
The play takes us inside a Hollywood recording studio where Bankhead is to re-record, i.e. "loop," one line in the film Die, Die My Darling. This should take five minutes, but as we saw in a looping session in the film Postcards from the Edge, when drugs and alcohol are involved, don't bet on anything except indulgence.
The reason for the eight-hour marathon session is finally revealed in the closing scene. In the interim, the wild, aging, but still finely dressed Tallulah ("Don't call me Miss Bankhead"), tortures the attending producer, Danny, who knows her career and is trying to be prepared for her antics. Danny is played with a charming edge by Chad Allen. His uptight impatience, echoing the style of David Hyde Pearce, is challenged repeatedly by TB's infectiously poisonous behavior. She demands a drink, stops for a little codeine, then cocaine, then more argument, causing the sound engineer (Michael Karl Orenstein) to be dispatched to meals or the hallway time and again. This causes Danny to explode, then confess his own pain and secrets.
Late in the show, the "confessional" aspects of Tallulah get a bit heavy on the psychotherapy. Lombardo, in his notes, asks, "Why do so many of us instinctively attempt to sabotage ourselves, causing conflict and chaos, when all is seemingly moving in positive directions?". He attempts to answer this question through Tallulah's self analysis, but it's rather numbing.
Getting our skin tingling again is Danny's request for her to play Blanche DuBois – a role Tennessee Williams wrote for her that she promptly rejected. "Who wants to see an aging, promiscuous Southern woman who drinks too much playing an aging, promiscuous Southern woman who drinks too much?" Watching Jessica Tandy become a star with the part is Tallulah's big regret, and her redemptive performance in that studio is astonishing. Harper packs a powerful wallop. I'll never again think of her as Rhoda but as one hell of an amazing actress.
Rob Ruggiero directs. Michael Gilliam's lighting and Adrian W. Jones' scenic design surprise all by elegantly revealing a set behind the set, a shadow, a metaphor if you will for Tallulah's secret pain.
Looped, presented at The Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. Tickets are $32-65,626-356-PLAY. Tues. through Fri. at 8, Sat. at 4 and 8; Sun. at 2 and 7. Closes Auguest 3.
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