Drawing by Carolyn Raship
Wednesday night at Dixon Place, Theatre Askew will be presenting a workshop production of a section of my play The Fickle Mistress, about the original “Naked Lady” Adah Isaacs Menken. I’ve known Askew’s director Tim Cusack since the Todo Con Nada days….I first saw him in Ian W. Hill’s production of Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, and later he played a villainous priest in my play Columbia the Germ of the Ocean at Chashama (2002). We have always bonded over our mutual admiration for the Theatre of the Ridiculous. I have much enjoyed (and written about) several of Askew’s productions: I, Claudius (which I reviewed for Time Out New York); Busted (a.k.a A Night in the Tombs), which I wrote about in my Villager column; and Cornbury, reviewed right here. So this is the first mega-positive. It’s a wonderful feeling to be produced by a company whose work you so admire.
But that’s just the beginning! The cast includes Everett Quinton, heir apparent to Charles Ludlam, OBIE-award winner, and the performer of a scene-stealing turn in the Quentin Tarantino-Oliver Stone collaboration Natural Born Killers. Every so often during a rehearsal I look over and it sinks in that he’s actually doing my play. It is surreal indeed.
But wait, there’s more. Also in the cast is another OBIE winner, actress Jan Leslie Harding (she won for her performance in Mac Wellman’s Sincerity Forever in 1990). Jan also starred in Julie Taymor’s Green Bird on Broadway and had a principal role in Hal Hartley’s 1997 movie Henry Fool .
Jan also appeared in Ruth Margraff’s Red Frogs, directed by Elyse Singer. Elyse is someone else whose work I’ve admired for a long time, starting with her revival of Mae West’s play Sex in 1999 ( which I wrote about for American Theatre magazine. Go here for that artifact). And Elyse’s co-production of Beebo Brinker is the very first review I wrote for Travalanche, my second post ever. It is here.) In addition to being a terrific director, she’s also a scholar; her research on West and Eva Tanguay was hugely helpful to me on No Applause). So I’m beyond thrilled that she is bringing her prodigious talents to bear on the current play, and that she brought with her Chuck Montgomery (Chuck, like Jan not only appeared in Henry Fool but in several productions at the legendary Cucaracha theatre, of which you will find many fond memories here). I’ve never forgotten Chuck’s performance in Elyse’s production of Sex — not because he had any Hamlet moments, but because he has excellent stage presence, the kind of face and voice you associate with old-school Hollywood.
So what are we up to now? Five extremely classy artists. And we haven’t even gotten up to the star yet! Molly Pope is just that: a bona fide star. Time Out New York loves her, calling her “a downtown retro-diva” and the “next best thing of 1963”. The Village Voice’s Michael Musto recently devoted a whole “Rising Star” column to her here. This is a lot of freight to lay on her but it really is like watching a young Streisand or Bette Midler: terrific acting and comic chops, and a big brassy Broadway voice (and rest assured we’ve got her singing a couple of songs — some of them quite dirty). This is a big personality and we’re so fortunate to have her at this moment — in a few months we’ll probably have to book her through William Morris, if we can come up with the 5 gs!
Rounding out the cast is Karl O’Brien Williams, artistic director of the Caribbean performing arts organization Braata Productions and a drama professor at BMMC; and Natalie Paul, who just finished Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program. No slouches either!
To find out how you can see all these amazing people, go here!
And to hear me, Tim and Elyse speak talk about the production with nytheatre.com’s Martin Denton go here.
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