WHEN PLAYWRIGHTS KILL is now having its world premiere onstage at The Huntington Theatre! The title, if not suggestive of a common occurrence, must surely be an everyday impulse. This semi-uproarious comedy by Matthew Lombardo was inspired by a real life backstage/onstage drama to which Bostonians had a front row seat in the summer of 2019. It was then that Oscar-winning screen legend Faye Dunaway played screen icon Katharine Hepburn in a one woman pre-Broadway tryout at The Huntington Theatre called “Tea At five”– also written by Lombardo. The show never made it to Broadway and Dunaway, who was never in full possession of her lines or her temper, was fired for reportedly abusive diva behavior.
(L-R) Kevin Chamberlin, Matt Doyle, Beth Leavel/ photo credit: Jim Sabitus
Here we are seven years later, again at The Huntington Theatre, where Lombardo inspired by the debacle, has tried to turn a lemon into lemonade. He and a Tony Award-winning dream cast with the aid of director Noah Himmelstein deliver a laugh riot of a comedy out of the gate: Act I is insanely funny. The curtain opens on young playwright Jack Hawkins (charismatic Tony winner Matt Doyle) sitting downstage center in a strait jacket. He proceeds to tell us what got him there. He’s written a show called “The Return” about a big movie star hoping to revive her career with a star turn on Broadway. But it must first survive its pre-Broadway tryout at Boston’s Colonial Theatre!
It’s life imitating art imitating life. Against the instincts of the playwright and coerced by a cash-strapped blowhard of a producer Freddie Carlton (a hilarious Adam Heller), drug-addled screen diva Brooke Remington is cast as the lead (the magnificent Tony-winner Beth Leavel). Brooke’s star has dimmed, but she still has caché– and cash value by way of ticket sales!
At the first meeting Brooke displays all the tendencies of a full blown narcissist with room to grow. Leavel levels us with a mad menu of self-absorbed falderol, hurtling around the stage, posing and posturing up a storm, and torturing a waiter with an order for a caesar salad which includes minute specifications for the dimensions of the croutons! In rehearsal, she’s even more unhinged, her lines proving absurdly elusive even when fed to her via an earpiece– because she delivers the stage directions aloud too! In her ear as prompter is the show’s wildly funny secret weapon Tobias Deschanel in fabulous drag (Tomás Matos) who “out-divas” the diva! At the end of ACT I “The Return”‘s pre-Broadway debut is hysterical– but drives the playwright mad.
(L-R) Matt Doyle, Tomás Matos, Adam Heller/ photo credit: Jim Sabitus
Then Act II happens; there’s the rub. Suddenly the action turns to farce when the title becomes the modus operandi. The second act is leaden and literal, wit giving way to shtick as the playwright’s incomprehensible attempts at homicide fall flat. Snappy dialogue, delicious inside quips about actors and local theater, and a premise rooted in reality are replaced, by far-fetched schemes capped by a full frontal tonal assault! In an out-of-the box bid for pathos, Beth suddenly gets vulnerable which is later revisited in a corny climax designed to wrap this all up as a valentine to theater. It felt like sketch material straining for meaning. Act I killed me! Act II killed the show.
The world premiere production of WHEN PLAYWRIGHTS KILL is now onstage at The Huntington Theatre only until Saturday 4/18!
