By Charlene Baldridge | Theater Review
Lamb’s Players Theatre’s world premiere
Look who’s proving its mettle (guts) now: Lamb’s Players Theatre, that’s who. Artistic Director Robert Smyth directs his wife, the splendid Deborah Gilmour Smyth as Marlene Dietrich, along with eight other wondrously cast actors in the world premiere of “Dinner With Marlene” by San Diego playwright Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey.
Harvey based the play on a story her father, Eric Hanes, told her when he was 90. It happened in October 1938 in Paris. A 27-year-old Swedish travel agent, he had been sent by his employer to evaluate the Lancaster Hotel in Paris. There he met the famous singer/actress Marlene Dietrich, who was staying at the Lancaster and had just fired her precocious 13-year-old daughter Maria Sieber’s nanny. As a favor, Eric “babysat” Maria (Avery Trimm) one afternoon, taking her to museums, and as a result was invited to be Maria’s escort to a dinner at Tout Paris, a renowned restaurant near the Lancaster. The hostess was American millionaire Barbara Hutton (Rachael VanWormer).
Affable Brian Mackey portrays Eric Hanes. Among the dinner guests in the play are renowned German violinist Fritz Kreisler; Dietrich’s current amour, author Erich Maria Remarque (Jason Heil); art dealer Bernadine Boubiel (Cynthia Gerber); and Lenore Wolff (Kerry Meads), wife of the Lancaster’s owner. Patrick Duffy is the omnipresent waiter, providing Champagne to the diners all evening (the food is ordered but never seen).
Consider the era, seven months after the Anschluss (Germany’s annexation of Austria), and you realize that nearly everyone at the table, with the exception of Boubiel and Wolff, has come to Paris to await the opportunity to go somewhere else.
As the dinner progresses and everyone drinks more and more Champagne, secrets are revealed and lies are told. Students of history, knowing what happens next, and having learned what has already been forbidden or lost, worry for the safety of each character.
At 2½ hours with a 15-minute interval, Harvey’s well-constructed, superbly played, extremely brave and intricate work will be of great fascination and satisfaction to many. Others, perhaps too challenged or bored or both, may leave at the interval as some in the opening night audience did. Those departures are sad, because they missed the brilliant payoff in the second act. Tears came as we remembered those who did not make their way out. Within months, even Paris was no longer safe.
What a blessing for us that just prior to his death Eric Hanes gave his daughter, Ann-Charlotte, the guest list, at length causing her to ponder what might have been said and what the topics of discussion were at his dinner with Marlene. The resulting play is much more than a history lesson. It is a reminder that such a thing must never recur. Unfortunately it is very timely.
Kreisler never plays his violin, but he does sing an Austrian folk song, accompanied on piano by Marlene. John Rosen’s performance as the renowned violinist is deeply layered, superb indeed, a jewel among many others. I cannot think of a better Marlene than Smyth, a master vocalist who wears the tuxedo well and convinces us she is Marlene.
Think of the challenge presented by a table that seats eight placed before an audience. I find it amazingly that there are no sight or sound problems. One hears every word (sound design by Deborah Gilmour Smyth), enjoys Jeanne Reith’s elegant costumes, Mike Buckley’s scenic design, Nathan Peirson’s lighting and Michael McKeon’s projections. Most of all, one savors the mental stimulation and substance of Harvey’s play, so well produced by Lamb’s Player’s Theatre.
—Charlene Baldridge has been writing about the arts since 1979. Follow her blog at charlenebaldridge.com or reach her at [email protected].
