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| Karen Murphy as Sue Mengers. All photos by Lanny Nagler |
A portrait of an especially
engaging shark swimming in shark-infested waters is what we have in John
Logan’s I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat with
Sue Mengers, which opened on Broadway in 2013 and is currently playing at
TheaterWorks.
Who, many of you might ask, is, or
was, Sue Mengers? Well, for those in the know about the lore of Tinsel Town
To give you an idea of Mengers’
personality, Bette Midler played the role in the Broadway production. Up in Hartford , it’s Karen
Murphy’s task to realize this larger-than-life woman, which she does with
kinetic, at times almost frantic energy, for throughout the 90 minutes of this
one-act play, Murphy is in constant motion on the sofa that is the main prop in
John Coyne’s period-evocative set design. Wearing a somewhat gaudy caftan,
which she pulls at, rearranges, flutters and flounces, Murphy infuses Mengers
with the unbridled energy familiar to anyone who has had to deal with a child
on a sugar-high.
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| Set design by John Coyne |
The frame for this walk down
Mengers’ memory lane is that the talent agent is preparing to host a party,
with the audience dealt with as interlopers, uninvited representatives of the
star-struck, movie-going public with whom Menger condescends to speak before
the stars arrive (at several points she actually solicits an audience member to
be her servant – and he complies). This immediate dissolution of the fourth
wall is, initially, a bit off-putting, and it takes a while to become
comfortable with the play’s main conceit. It’s not until Murphy, down-shifting
for a moment, relates Mengers’ history – escape from Hitler’s Germany, a father
who commits suicide and a mother described merely as a Gorgon – that the
character on stage begins to take hold of the audience’s imagination, becomes
more than just someone spewing often venomous words. It is in this extended
sequence that Murphy touchingly creates a defining moment in Mengers’ life: she
is a shy schoolgirl embarrassed by her German accent who learns English by
watching movies (starring Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson and Rosalind Russell) and
eventually finds the courage to walk across the playground to introduce herself
to the most popular girl in her class. This moment will become one of the
play’s controlling metaphors.
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| Karen Murphy |
The very nature of the play and its
multiple references to actors and films of a by-gone era may well be
self-limiting with regard to its audience appeal. As Murphy, in rapid-fire
fashion, recounts interaction with, and “dishes the dirt” about, various stars,
much of what she recounts may be lost on those who were born after President
Johnson proclaimed the onset of the Great Society (that was early in 1965).
Attention to and a complete understanding of the play requires a cultural
literacy that may well be beyond many of those who are not yet ready for an
AARP membership. As a college professor who has, on occasion, made references in
class to Deliverance, Bonnie and Clyde, The French Connection and Chinatown
only to be met with blank stares (don’t even try saying “Rosebud” or “Frankly,
Scarlett…”), I can attest to a general lack of awareness of filmic history that
entails little more than vaguely remembering having seen Pulp Fiction and The
Shawshank Redemption (both nominees for Best Picture in 1995). – might as
well just stick with “Let it go!”
As with all one-person shows,
there’s a certain ebb and flow to I’ll
Eat You Last, and much of the ebb involves Murphy merely maintaining
character, bitching and kvetching, but the flow moments, and there are several
of them, are thoroughly engaging. The first is the aforementioned schoolgirl
reminiscence – then there is Mengers in an extended phone conversation with
Sissy Spacek, her confrontation with Bill Friedkin in an attempt (ultimately
successful) to get Gene Hackman the iconic role of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (she suggests that
Jackie Gleason was being considered for the role – yikes!), and her efforts to nudge
Ali MacGraw back on track after the young actress married Steve McQueen (here
Mengers paints an especially biting portrait of the star of The Magnificent Seven, The Sand Pebbles and The Great Escape). Then there is
Mengers’ on-going relationship with Streisand, which is referred to and
dramatized several times – it is, in fact, Streisand’s phone call that Mengers
is waiting for throughout the play, a phone call that will confirm that the
star is leaving Mengers (as have many of her other clients – sic simper!).
As already noted, it takes a while
for Mengers’ character to come into focus, but when it does there is a certain
bittersweet quality to it, and to the agent’s life as a whole. Director Don
Stephenson has chosen to allow Murphy to basically rush down the tracks of
Mengers’ life, an express train when, perhaps, it should have been a local,
giving the audience the opportunity to assess what they have seen before
rushing off to the next destination. There are, however, fleeting moments when
the inherent superficiality of Mengers’ life-long pursuit of fame and fortune
flicker to the fore and you get the sense that beneath the brash exterior is a
frightened child who never really overcame the trauma of her formative years.
Yes, that child walked across the playground, but the adult she became apparently
felt compelled to continue to find playgrounds to walk across, constantly
testing acceptance. It’s there in Logan ’s
play and in Murphy’s performance, but you have to look for it, see beyond the
cigarette smoke and booze and marijuana and non-stop chatter and put-downs to
the quivering guppy hiding beneath the impressive shark façade.
I’ll
Eat You Last runs through August 23. For tickets or more information call
860-527-7838 or go to www.theaterworkshartford.org
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