Apparently hopes are high for Mark V. Olsen’s “Cornelia,” playing in its world premiere at the Old Globe through June 21. The five-person company features the considerable acting talents of Robert Foxworth, Melissa Page Hamilton and T. Ryder Smith — all known to Globe audiences — and debutants Beth Grant and Hollis McCarthy. Broadway director Ethan McSweeney stages the work, Olsen’s first full-length play. Other assets include renowned Broadway scenic designer John Lee Beatty, whose designs suggest numerous locations in the Deep South. It looks like no expense was spared on Tracy Christensen’s numerous costumes and accessories for the women and the men’s well-tailored business suits. Christopher Akerlind and Paul Peterson — both topnotch designers — create lights and sound, respectively, and composer Steven Cahill creates his first Globe score to underlay the production, which spans 1970-1977, the years Alabama Gov. George Wallace was married to former beauty queen Cornelia (nee) Ellis. In other words, it’s the kind of physical production we’ve come to expect of the Old Globe. It was reported not long ago that former attorney Olsen — more recently executive producer, co-creator and writer of HBO’s “Big Love” — has been trying for years to find the best way to tell the story of Cornelia Wallace, wife of the controversial Alabama governor. In both real life and the play, Wallace was/is the king of wafflers and a deadly opponent of those who cross him, as Cornelia apparently did. On the day of the assassination attempt on Wallace’s life, Cornelia threw herself across his body, shielded it from further bullets with her own (it made the cover of Life), and famously “stood by her man,” who was paralyzed from the legs down thenceforward. History tells us she wiretapped his bedroom phone, made a gubernatorial run of her own, that various staff members colluded to get her ousted from mansion and marriage, and that she slunk off into the twilight. The play suggests that she was institutionalized. Cornelia died this year in Florida, where she’d moved to be closer to her two sons from a previous marriage. There seems little doubt that Cornelia was delusional. Her favorite fictional character was Scarlett O’Hara, and her mother, Ruby Folsom (sister of former Gov. Jim Folsom, whom Wallace defeated) was an eccentric, outspoken woman. In the play, no doubt meticulously researched, she is a raging alcoholic as well. Did Cornelia really love George, or did she play the sex card and make nice though seven years of marriage merely to gain personal and political power? And what roles did the play’s Iago-like campaign manager, George’s brother Gerald Wallace, and Gerald’s wife, Marie, play in the drama? Wow! Fodder for a brilliant play, indeed. Sadly, the real-life drama is not always compelling theater, at least not yet. George and Cornelia were exceptionally complicated people. Politics, as we know, is mean and nasty, and so was flip-flop four-time presidential candidate George, both personally and politically. Aside from brilliant performances (and they are, all of them) and a beautiful physical production, this play needs more clarity and a dramatic arc that may not have existed in reality. There are many memorable scenes, the first of which is the initial mother-daughter scene between Cornelia and Ruby. The second is the brutal pre-nuptial consummation scene between the commanding Wallace and the kittenish Cornelia. The third is the girl talk between Marie and Cornelia over the ironing board. Another brilliant piece of acting occurs when Ruby takes over the paralyzed George’s office and nearly spills the beans about Cornelia’s intent to run for governor. The playwright’s material, rife with marvelous, complicated characters and peppered with super scenes, fails to become a cohesive and consistently dramatic whole. But thanks for trying. “Cornelia” plays at 7 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through June 21 at the Old Globe Theatre, Balboa Park. For tickets ($29-$76) and information, visit wwwtheoldglobe.org or call (619) 23-GLOBE.
