By Cynthia Citron
- Cynthia Citron
LOS ANGELES — There’s no denying that the role of Vivien Leigh is an acting tour de force for Judith Chapman. She looks like Leigh. She sounds like Leigh. And she goes dramatically nuts like Leigh.
But the problem with Rick Foster’s play Vivien, now having its Los Angeles premiere in a Rogue Machine production at
Theatre/Theater, is that it is too much an “inside” job. You have to know who Binkie (Hugh “Binkie” Beaumont, legendary producer and manager in London’s West End) and Simon (not Neil) are, or were, since they, along with many others, are addressed but never identified. You ought to know that Leigh was preparing to star in two Edward Albee plays, A Delicate Balance and Tiny Alice in the year that she died. You would have to recognize what plays she is quoting from when she dramatizes long passages as she floats around the stage.
It would also help to know some of the back-story that fueled her obsession with Laurence Olivier; that they had lived and traveled together for several years before his wife and her husband would consent to a divorce. You had to know that her violent mood swings were the result of a crippling bipolar disorder, and you would learn, perhaps for the first time, that
she suffered from depression and underwent seven years of electro-convulsive (shock) therapy. And while she coughed delicately during the second act of the play, there was no mention of the tuberculosis that eventually killed her at the age of 53.
You would have to figure out that the “Finchy” that she had a later love affair with was actor Peter Finch. And you would have to understand that her
animosity toward actress Jean Simmons was because Olivier made Simmons the Ophelia to his Hamlet after having promised the role to Leigh.
Whether there was another relationship between Olivier and Simmons that reinforced Leigh’s anger is left unexplored.
As are someof Olivier’s other purported relationships. Marilyn Monroe, for example, is obscurely alluded to in a tossed-off comment that Laurence
had gone to make the movie The Prince and the Showgirl. And Danny Kaye, reputed to have been Olivier’s lover for a decade, is mentioned only in the context of having “called on the phone.
Nevertheless, in her ongoing monologues Leigh provides insight into her thinking about her profession. “I live through my roles,” she says.
“Parts of me don’t exist until I play them out.” She notes that Olivier had instructed her that “You cannot play the character if you do not
love the character,” and she bemoans the fact that “with Shakespeare’s girls, by the time you’ve lived long enough to understand them, you’re
too old (to play them).”
Obsessed with her looks, and with aging, she talks to herself as she scrutinizes her image in a dressing table mirror and vows to “reignite our soggy
passion” with Olivier.
She rails at theater critic Kenneth Tynan for his “brilliant, sadistic reviews” and for his comment that her second Academy Award (for her role as
Blanche DuBois in Streetcar Named Desire) only confirmed the “tastelessness of Hollywood.”
She considers the fragile DuBois and the staunch Antigone of Anhouil’s anti-Nazi polemic of 1943 as representative of “the two parts” of
herself, and confesses that “I live in my extremes.”
Which is where Judith Chapman lives as well. In this fascinating role she ranges from quietly coquettish—often so quietly that she can’t be
comprehended—to raging mania, in which she leaves the audience gasping for breath. Director Elina de Santos has expertly guided her through
this extravagant role and provided us with a fascinating interlude with one of America’s artistic treasures
Vivien will continue at Theatre/Theater, 5041 West Pico Blvd., in Los Angeles Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 through September 4th.
Call 855-585-5185 or visit www.roguemachinetheatre.com for reservations.
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Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World. She may be contacted at cynthia.citron@sdjewishworld.com