Reviews: Elizabeth McGovern plays Ava Gardner, plus three indie offerings

Even if you’re not familiar with Ava Gardner, the sultry screen star of the 1940s and 50s, you might be intrigued by Ava: The Secret Conversations (Rating: ✭✭), written by and starring Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey, Ordinary People, Ragtime).

Gardner’s life and work are certainly full of drama. Unfortunately, neither is explored with much complexity or depth in McGovern’s play.

The title refers to a series of conversations Gardner had with British author and journalist Peter Evans in 1988.

In her mid-60s, her most famous films like Mogambo and The Killers behind her and recovering from a stroke (which limited her mobility), Gardner was looking for a ghost writer to help pen her autobiography, thinking the book would provide some much-needed income.

Over time (it’s unclear how much time, to be honest), Gardner let down her guard to talk about her childhood in North Carolina, her marriages to three famous men (actor Mickey Rooney, musician Artie Shaw and crooner/actor Frank Sinatra), as well as other figures she was involved with, including Howard Hughes.

Eventually, after she discovered Sinatra had once successfully sued Evans for libel, she abruptly cut the collaboration short and wrote the book herself.

Years after her death in 1990, Evans published a collection of those “secret” conversations. And that book attracted the interest of McGovern, who — after trying to find a writer — decided to write the show herself.

You can see why McGovern, no stranger to the stage, might want to play a screen star of an earlier era — especially one whose career and onscreen persona were nothing like her own. What’s strange is that even after 90 minutes, we don’t get much sense of Gardner, either as a woman or an artist.

One of the main problems is the play’s shaky structure and inconsistent point of view. Evans (Aaron Costa Ganis) narrates the play, and after a throat-clearing, overly long introduction about how to begin the work (the sure sign of an amateur writer at work), he lets us see their encounters, from their first phone conversation — Evans thinks he’s being pranked — to his nervous initial in-person meeting and subsequent talks.

In a series of awkward and dull interludes, we also watch Evans talk with his editor (voiced by Michael Bakkensen) about what they need Gardner to open up about. Will she confirm, for instance, the rumours about the size of Sinatra’s penis?

There’s little momentum to the show, except for the fact that Gardner, seldom seen without a drink in her hand, wants her literary royalty cheques sooner rather than later. Worse, we know next to nothing about married father Evans, who at the top of the show admits he’s working on a novel. When the star, purring with alcohol, puts her hand on his thigh, he barely reacts — a missed opportunity. No Sunset Blvd. vibes, here.

Neither is there much information about Gardner’s films, except Wikipedia-level observations.

The play’s most vivid scenes feature flashbacks to Gardner’s relationships with her husbands. Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel uses projections (by Alex Basco Koch) to let us see photos of the couples, efficiently and effectively jettisoning us back to earlier eras, Costa Ganis playing the men and McGovern playing younger versions of the main character.

These are telling scenes, especially when we hear Gardner’s thick Southern accent as a naive, bright-eyed ingenue in Hollywood, or being controlled by the coldly intellectual Shaw (who married eight times). She seems most herself with Sinatra, and the excellent Costa Ganis gets to not only impersonate the man but convincingly belt out a number.

In 90 minutes, McGovern makes maybe a dozen costume changes, wearing everything from a towel to beautifully detailed, textured dresses (costume designs are by Toni-Leslie James). If only as much attention had been lavished on the script.

One of McGovern’s onscreen specialties is playing characters who are hard to read; she’s got a smile that’s as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s. That quality serves her well here. But it also means she keeps her Ava at a cool, chilly distance. The irony is that, while Gardner didn’t want to be defined by the men in her life, that is exactly what happens in the play.

“The story you’re about to see is true, except for the parts that aren’t,” Evans/Costa Ganis tells us at the top of the show. I wish McGovern had added more made-up parts to at least make the show, and her character, entertaining. This star vehicle stalls and never really starts before it’s over.

Ava: The Secret Conversations continues at the CAA Theatre (651 Yonge) until Nov. 30. Ticket details here.

Explosive talents

It’s fitting that Tick, tick... BOOM! (Rating: ✭✭✭✭), a show about a talented young artist, should provide such a fine showcase for Bowtie Productions, one of the more exciting young independent theatre companies in the city.

Jonathan Larson penned this semi-autobiographical musical a few years before his massive breakthrough show Rent, which he tragically didn’t live to see performed (he died of an aortic dissection the day before the show’s first preview).

Struggling musical theatre composer Jonathan (Joshua Kilimnik) is about to turn 30 and questioning his whole existence. His girlfriend Susan (Diana Del Rosario) wants to move from cramped, expensive Manhattan to a smaller town and settle down, while his former roommate Michael (Misha Sharivker) has given up theatre, sold out and got a corporate job.

Meanwhile, Jon’s career is stalled, and he’s considering giving it up for a more stable existence. Sure, he’s got the upcoming workshop of his latest piece, SUPERBIA, but he’s still stuck serving brunch to annoying, entitled New Yorkers, struggling to make rent and trying to get his agent to return his calls.

Tick, tick... BOOM! anticipates Rent in many ways, from little details in Larson’s book (characters live in walkups with no buzzers, requiring keys to be thrown down to guests) to some harmonies in the pop-rock score and a late plot point about one character that becomes a major theme in the future prize-winning show.

What makes it so poignant is that the clock-ticking countdown that becomes a motif in the show was, in retrospective, prophetic. Larson’s time, we now know, really was limited.

Even without those autobiographical elements, however, this production works beautifully. The composer originally conceived the show as a solo vehicle, but after his death it was reconceived (with script consultant David Auburn) as a work for three actors.

Director Meredith Shedden is working with that version, and it pulses with life and youthful energy. There’s an impressive range to the score, from lively bops like “Green Green Dress,” in which, inspired by his girlfriend’s outfit, Jon makes out with Susan, to a very funny riff on a famous number by Jon’s idol, Stephen Sondheim, set in the diner where he works. In a song about Michael’s new upward mobility, there’s even a sample of a 70s sitcom theme song that will likely make zillennials scratch their heads.

Shedden stages the show with lots of imagination, especially a key number in which Jon and Susan try to talk things out over landline phones, their messages getting crossed and misinterpreted as the cords from their phones entangle them, and the music — conducted with maximum effectiveness by Michael Ippolito — increasing wildly in tempo.

I’m not wild about Quynh Diep’s set, which features three walls, two covered with posters and mementos, the other suggesting a playful window where Del Rosario and Sharivker can pop up as other characters, and a couple of desks and chairs. But it allows for quick scene transitions. Niall Durcan’s lighting and Nat Zablah’s sound work nicely in bringing the show’s contrasting moods to life.

Kilimnik, a fine director and one of the co-founders of the fast-rising musical theatre company Shifting Ground Collective, proves an equally impressive actor. He was a standout in Bowtie’s Falsettos last year, and he is thrilling here in a completely different role. His Jonathan is believably anxious and uncertain, his humour an obvious defence mechanism and insecurity about his precarious future. He’s equally comfortable rocking out or, accompanying himself on keyboards, breaking your heart with a soaring ballad.

While their main characters are a bit thin (a fault of the book), Del Rosario and Sharivker, reuniting onstage after Shifting Ground’s Dora Award-winning The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, populate the production with lively caricatures that fill out the show’s world.

Best of all, there’s poetic justice in seeing this show about up-and-coming theatre artists being done by a group of people in the same situation, albeit a little younger. More than three decades after it debuted, Larson’s themes about making art and forging friendships in the cruel modern world feel more urgent and relevant than ever.

Tick, tick... BOOM! runs at the Alumnae Theatre (70 Berkeley) until Nov. 15. Ticket details here

Disturbing DNA

It was a bold choice for the emerging indie theatre company Icarus Theatre to mount DNA (Rating: ✭✭), Dennis Kelly’s disturbing 2007 ensemble drama about a group of high school students who cover up a crime. It’s too bad the play itself feels like a series of theatre exercises rather than a complete work. And while director Erik Richards has made one key casting decision that adds a fresh feel — changing the gender of the group leader from male to female (played by Chantal Grace with bone-chilling intensity) — the storytelling occasionally feels muddled and confusing.

Richards makes good use of the sunken BMO Studio playing area, creating a sense of danger and unpredictability as the ensemble of ten seemingly appear from all directions. With so many characters, however, it’s difficult to keep track of the shifting power dynamics among them as their situation changes, and a handful of the performances lack nuance.

It might be unfair to compare productions, but the memory of the recent Concord Floral — also featuring a large ensemble of emerging artists and a similar storyline, performed in the same venue — was much clearer and more memorable.

DNA runs at the Theatre Centre BMO Studio (1115 Queen West) until Nov. 15. Ticket details here

Predictably fun

The Hallmark-style holiday romantic comedy is so ubiquitous that it’s spawned a sub-genre of musicals that gently (or not so gently) send them up. A couple of years ago we saw Chris, Mrs., a sweet and family-friendly show that deserves another life. And this season not one but two shows aim to entertain those who know all the beats of the formula.

First out of the gates is the ridiculously fun Predictable Holiday Rom-Com: The Musical (Rating: ✭✭✭✭), with a book and lyrics by George Reinblatt (Evil Dead The Musical) and music by Reinblatt and Suzy Wilde (After the Rain).

Overworked magazine writer Holly (Tess Barao) is spending the holidays away from her boorish boyfriend Sam (A. Braatz) at her hometown of Christmasville, where townsfolk only drink eggnog and her Uncle Nick (Jonathan Shaboo) runs a Christmas tree business that’s about to go out of business.

Soon after returning, Holly bumps into a handsome widower named Mark (Tenaj Williams), who’s got an adorable kid named Heather (Nikki Brianne Samonte). Holly’s nemesis Amber (Barbara Johnston), however, is also interested in Mark, and soon Sam is on his way up to complicate things further.

Reinblatt, who also directs, has great fun sending up all the tropes of the genre, critiquing them with songs like the self-explanatory “Family-Friendly, Multi-Activity, Outdoor Wintertime Date” and (talk about moral dilemmas not explored in Hallmark films) “Should I Cheat?”

He even includes a very clever audience participation bit about a former TV star who seems to be in just about every Hallmark film ever made.

The songs are tuneful and catchy; they’re also very democratically parcelled out. Normally, we don’t get the POVs of the secondary characters, but here the rival, the bro-ey former boyfriend and even the kid being raised by the single dad get individual numbers.

Speaking of which, this show features some phenomenal talents. I went in only knowing Johnston’s name (she frequently collaborates with Wilde and music director Anika Johnson), but went away studying the credits of the other five, wanting to see and hear more from them.

Let’s hope this show catches on and becomes an annual, or semi-annual tradition — like the viewing of the TV films themselves. At the very least I hope the producers release a cast album; a bunch of the songs, including the final number, “I Got a Ring for Christmas,” deserve regular play.

Predictable Holiday Rom-Com: The Musical continues at the Second City (1 York) until Nov. 16. Ticket details here

Upcoming: reviews of The Christmas Market, The Comeuppance (see my interview with playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins here), Shrek The Musical, Wicked: For Good and more.