Theater Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . . .
For cheesy New York cheesecake, few can top Junior’s. For cheesy New York theater, I recommend Deadly Stages—which opened today at Theatre Row—where you’ll get acting, production values, and writing that rivals Limburger in olfactory sensation. Deadly Stages, a 90-minute spoof of 1940s/1950s B-movie backstage murder mysteries, is the comedically challenged work of Marc Castle and Mark Finley, who have completely missed their mark (marc?). Da-da-boom.
Deadly Stages is precisely the kind of show one associates with Charles Busch, the fabulous drag queen-playwright who specializes in writing and performing in plays where, with unparalleled aplomb, he can sashay about in wigs and costumes convincingly channeling iconic divas as they might have appeared on stage or celluloid. Busch himself is soon to open across town in his much-anticipated Ibsen’s Ghost: An Irresponsible Biographical Fantasy.
In Deadly Stages co-dramatist Marc Castle, in drag as the drawling Veronica Traymore (both Castle and his character get program bios), comes off as a cheap, eye-rolling Tallulah Bankhead knockoff (replete with “Darlings”); he fails sadly at capturing anything like the kind of sincerity mixed with subtle tongue-in-cheekiness mastered by Busch—at times he seems bored even to be here. Castle has the correct, tired, worldly voice, but, crowned with a red wig and garbed in a skirt and clumsily fitting silk blouse, he has nothing like the face and figure to portray a convincing star actress; one begins to wonder why he’s even there, as—despite the comic expectations of his cross-dressed presence—he adds little humor to the innocuous proceedings.
Deadly Stages is performed within a low-rent setting by Court Watson that shapes the stage into a box set whose walls are composed of red velour curtains. A few furnishings identify the several locales. The idea, however, of suggesting a makeup table by placing a row of glass globes across its top, instead of surrounding a mirrorless frame, is a head-scratcher.
The campy, movie-influenced plot, unimaginatively directed by co-dramatist Mark Finley, takes place in 1955 and concerns the clash between two divas when they’re cast in the same play. Stage legend Veronica Traymore, her last play having tanked, is making one last grab at theatrical immortality when she allows herself to be persuaded, against her will, to play the mother of bitchy movie star Rita Vernon (Ellen Reilly) in a new play, Sins of the Flesh, by playwright/director Anthony Arlo (David Leeper). Murder interrupts the proceedings when Dooney (Reilly again), Veronica’s Irish-accented dresser, is bumped off.
Pretty soon we have a series of exaggeratedly stereotypical incidents and characters, each scene interrupted by faux black and white period TV clips—seen on screens at either side—satirizing 1950s commercials, newscasts, and TV shows, like a dreadful bit starring a swishy piano player in the Liberace mode.
The principals—divided among only six actors—are Graham Sinclair (Rob Hancock), Veronica’s British playboy, ascot-wearing, soon-to-be-divorced husband; the one-named Phoebe (Dani Marcus)—like Hildegarde or Dagmar, we’re reminded—an ambitious young assistant, formerly in the employ of the late Eve Harrington (yes, that Eve Harrington, since we’re in All About Eve territory); Barbara Landis, a literary agent (Reilly again); Connie Edison (Marcus again), a snotty gossip columnist whose column is called “Broadway Lights” (get it? Connie Edison, “Broadway Lights”?); Wade Elliot (Hancock again), a jazzed-up, beat-generation actor in a motorcycle jacket and porkpie hat (a nonsensical combination), who uses expressions like “the living end” and “Daddy-o”; and Marvin Maxwell, producer, Frederick “Fritz” Farley, veteran actor, and Detective Colletti, a trench-coat, fedora-wearing, tough guy cop, all played by Tom Galantich. When someone calls Colletti Colitus you realize just how low the show’s comic bar is.
With most of the actors playing more than one role, you’d expect some clever costume and wig work to help them sharply differentiate one character from another. However, perhaps because of budgeting, designer Court Watson’s contributions in this area are vastly insufficient. And, while the actors seem suitable for more conventional material, most can do little more than overact here—Reilly and Hancock in particular—when what’s needed is the shape-shifting versatility seen every week on SNL, in even the most innocuous sketches.
Unlike my companion, who said he laughed once, I didn’t laugh at all, although there were a few yocks from the preview audience and more than that from the two giggling gentlemen taking notes nearby. Deadly Stages is all that its title promises. I don’t think I could have smiled even if someone asked me to say “cheese.”
Deadly Stages. Through March 16 at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues). www.bfany.org/theatre-row
Photos: Stephen Webster
