Director Michael Driscoll moves to 12 Miles West Theatre Company in Montclair to stage this Hollywood revenge piece.
By: Stuart Duncan
Playwright John Patrick Shanley has been riding the carousel of fame for some time, reaching for the golden ring but rarely grasping it. His biggest hit has been Moonstruck, which bounced off Broadway to Hollywood and won an Oscar for Best Screenplay.
Other films followed, including Joe Versus The Volcano, which he also directed. Apparently, the Tinseltown experience was not a pleasant one, as we will see in a minute. His first love is the stage. Local theaters, especially the Villagers, have staged such works as Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Italian American Reconciliation.
The director of the Villagers’ Black Box series and the director of those shows is Michael Driscoll. He also did Gross Indecency a few months back for The Brook Theatre in Bound Brook. Now, Mr. Driscoll makes his professional debut at the 12 Miles West Theatre Company in Montclair.
The show is Four Dogs and a Bone, written by Mr. Shanley after he left Hollywood as a sort of revenge piece. It misses the golden ring by a lot but it is an evening of bitter fun. It runs a bit less than two hours, introduces a bunch of nasty characters and gives everyone a few moments of head shaking.
We are in Hollywood, beginning in the offices of the producer, Bradley (first names only in this script, possibly to protect the guilty). We soon meet a pair of actresses the ingenue, Brenda, who gives the term flirtatious a real workout and an aging blonde, Colette, still determined to plumb the younger roles. In the second scene, we meet the screenwriter (think Shanley) just learning how to play the game of back-stab and come out ahead.
Playwright Shanley drops a few one-liners, just to let us know he might take that avenue. Bradley announces: "My wife hates L.A. says the water’s hard."
Shanley writes dialogue better than plot, so we get a series of dialogues Bradley and Brenda, Colette and Victor, the writer followed by the two women, then the two guys. Four scenes, two acts and we’re out the door. There are a few lines with dirty words, just to let you know you are still in Hollywood. Not meaningful stuff, not even funny, but delivered with venom.
The characters are stereotypes, which also means they are difficult to act well. Twelve Miles West company veteran Gary Martins huffs and puffs his way through the role of Bradley, but it seems right on the button. Tricia Burr plays Colette as if she has seen it all before and that seems right, too. Lilli Marques has more fun with the role of Brenda, finding kookie bits to toss into the mix.
Robert Carr, not surprisingly, demands the most sympathy as the besieged writer, who proves in the final analysis to be more clever and a dirtier player than anyone. Michael Driscoll directs with his customary clean strokes and no-nonsense approach. There’s just no golden ring.
Four Dogs and a Bone plays at 12 Miles West Theatre Company, 484 Bloomfield Ave., Montclair, through Feb. 17. Performances: Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $20; seniors/students $15. For information, call (973) 746-7181. On the Web: www.12mileswest.org