Ashland Daily Tidings: Wisdom of Eve 2005

February 10, 2005

Genise, Strykowski anchor 'The Wisdom of Eve'

By Roberta Kent
For the Tidings

"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night."

Indeed it is. Bumpy, witty, sly and very, very funny.

"The Wisdom of Eve," at Camelot Theatre Company, has all the lines we remember from "All About Eve," the 1950 movie with Bette Davis, and a whole lot more. It's all here - the story of the bigger-than-life Broadway actress Margo Channing and the young conniving ingénue, Eve Harrington - along with a fast-moving mix of backstage Broadway and not-so-loyal friendship.

To be sure, Camelot's Artistic Managing Director Livia Genise makes Margo Channing very much her own character. Genise does not do a riff on anyone else's performance of Margo Channing. Lovable, impulsive, accomplished and insecure, Genise's Margo is a many-faceted and accomplished woman. Genise makes it clear that Margo's anger at Eve is as much about betrayal as it is about a fading career.

Camelot Theatre and the production's director John Litton have a real find in Nicole Strykowski as Eve Harrington. She holds her own with the outstanding Genise and the other experienced cast members. From the moment her waif-like Eve cons Channing's friend Karen Roberts (Linda Otto) into an introduction to her "idol," Strykowski effectively underlays Eve's ingénue persona with the character's true calculating self. We see Eve insinuate, seduce and blackmail her way up the ladder, from secretary to understudy to star, using the hapless stage manager Harvey (Larry Ziegelmeyer), the naïve Karen, and the besotted playwright Lloyd Roberts (Daniel Grossbard). Only Margo's husband Bill Samson (Doug Mitchell) sees Eve for the snake she really is.

Strykowski is a drama department senior at Southern Oregon University. She has already made a name for herself in SOU and local productions and she will be interning at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this season.

These star turns are ably backed by Al Laney as gossip columnist Tally-Ho Thompson, Marilyn Simmonds-Cole as Channing's dresser Leila and Jennifer McWhorter as the real ingénue Vera Franklin. (Tai Sammons took over the role on Feb. 7 and will continue through the end of the run). John Simutis does a brief but sly turn as agent Bert Hinkle.

John Litton's direction is a bit too "busy" for my taste. The play's dialogue is fast and intelligent and Litton would be better served by having his actors react less and not ping-pong so much about the stage. Maybe it was first night nerves? The second act seemed to go much better. The actors were more relaxed, less purposelessly frenetic and their timing improved.

Camelot Theatre has knocked itself out with this production. There is an elaborate set, designed by Nick Walsch, with the stage divided between a recreation of a Broadway star's dressing room and the living room of a fashionable Manhattan apartment. Best of all are Dotti Isom's costumes - the tailored suits, sleek dresses and politically-incorrect furs that indelibly set the time and place of the action.

"The Wisdom of Eve" started in 1946 as a short story in Cosmopolitan magazine by Mary Orr, who then turned it into a radio play for NBC. Twentieth Century Fox bought all rights (for $5,000) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who had just written the successful "Letter to Three Wives" was hired to write and direct. "All About Eve" was actually written for Claudette Colbert. When Colbert became unavailable due to a ruptured disc, Mankiewicz reluctantly cast Bette Davis, whose career, like Margo Channing's, was fading as she got older. The role of Eve was written for Jeanne Crain, who also had to bow out of the production, and a young, untried Anne Baxter replaced her. Mankiewicz kept most of Orr's snappy dialogue but his genius was to add the character of an acerbic theater critic, Addison DeWitt (played by George Sanders), to provide the narration and a spectacular confrontation scene with Eve. In 1970, the movie was adapted into the hit musical "Applause" with Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing.

"The Wisdom of Eve" plays at Camelot Theatre Company in Talent through March 6, with performances Friday, Saturday and Monday at 8 p.m. and a matinee on Sunday at 2 p.m. There is a special pay-what-you-can performance tonight at 8 p.m. For more information, call 535-5250.