Reviews - The Confession of Lily Dare and Three Tall Women

photo credit: Michael Wakefield

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I believe you all know how much I enjoy the work of Charles Busch.  I try to see all of his plays and appearances around town because he (and his work) just brings me so much joy and happiness.  He has a huge generosity of spirit and an enormous capacity for laughter and pathos and I just respond to him like gangbusters.  You can remind yourselves of a few of my previous writings about him HERE, HERE, and HERE.  When a friend emailed me and said that Charles' new piece would be premiering downtown, I immediately picked up not one, but two tickets.  I went to my first viewing of The Confession of Lily Dare last week.  Unsurprisingly, I LOVED IT.

I told my handsome seat neighbor (and fellow Charles-ophile) that seeing Charles' show was exactly what I needed to see last week - it has been busy and exhausting and fairly unfun around here lately.  The stupid weather has something to do with it, I'm sure, and I've been feeling a little unwell lately, just to add to the unfun.  Having some joy and laughter, courtesy of Mr. Busch, was just what the doctor ordered.  The cast of the new piece is filled with some of my very favorite stage actors, too, so believe me when I say I had just the best time.

The Confession of Lily Dare is another loving homage to strong women and classic films about strong women.  I laughed lustily and loudly whenever I caught a reference to another familiar-to-me movie (the Pollyanna section especially slayed me).  Of course, I laughed lustily and loudly throughout the play anyway, since it's so funny and clever.  But it also has much warmth and poignancy, too.  It's the rags-to-riches-to-rags story of a convent girl turned chanteuse turned madam, with another touching plot point running through the play.

I tell you, I went from laughing to crying several times throughout the evening.  There was one moment I won't soon forget, when Charles' Lily is truly down on her luck and performs in a dive bar between swigs from her flask.  And then the torch song she performs is absolutely heartbreaking.  I was sobbing.  There is so much honesty in what Charles does - it's parody, yes; it's campy, yes; it features drag, yes; but it is so much more.  At least it is to me.  And what it is seems to be the purest form of theater.  A group of people who want nothing more than to put on a show and share themselves with an audience.  Obviously I highly recommend seeing The Confession of Lily Dare - I'll be back for a return visit next week.  Once is never enough.

Speaking of 'once is never enough':  I can only imagine that I'll be returning to the Golden Theater for repeat visits of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women because OH.MY.GOD.IT.IS.
AMAZING.  Seriously.  I have been looking forward to seeing this production ever since it was announced.  One: I loved the original production; two: I've never seen Glenda Jackson live on stage before; three: Laurie Metcalf is a genius; four: I always enjoy Allison Pill; five: I was lucky enough to have a handsome Tony voter pal offer to take me; six: hello. Albee.  So all signs pointed to my enjoying my evening.



Enjoying isn't quite the right word.  I may have trouble finding the right words because I was absolutely stunned by Three Tall Women.  Gobsmacked, even.  It was like a gale force was blowing directly in my face and I had to hold my breath to make it through to the other side.  Several of my friends told me they found the play profoundly moving and cried copiously at the end.  Surprisingly, I was so overwhelmed and awed by the play's power and emotion that I didn't cry.  Sure, I welled up a time or two, but I didn't sob at the end, the way I thought I might.  I was too...overcome.  It was brilliance.  The only other time I can remember this sort of reaction is from the first time I saw The Normal Heart at the Public Theater.  I just couldn't believe the genius and I felt as if I couldn't speak, because it might ruin the magic.  That's how I felt the other night.

I totally forgot I had this signed copy of the script!

On the way home and ever since, though, I have been sobbing.  Just thinking about the experience of watching the play makes me weep.  Oh, how I wish Edward were here!  He would make fun of me, I know, but I would've had to try to express what the play did to me.  I've seen it before, but it was as if I was seeing it anew, and seeing something entirely new.  I really don't know what to say.

I wrote a few things down on my phone as I was crying on the subway:  it was incredible the way all of the truth-telling was so ugly, yet also starkly beautiful.  Even as the women, all based on Edward's adoptive mother who was less than maternal, were exposing their ugliness, they were still written and treated with gentleness.  With affection. With compassion.  It was quite gorgeous.  The way the play is written seems to me near-perfection: the way it uses repetition and wrapping memories around themselves is genius.  And the language...rapture.  The production is almost like a high-wire act - one wrong step and everything could topple.  Obviously, there was no toppling the night I was there.

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

Glenda Jackson was all that I could've hoped she would be - wickedly funny, powerful, domineering yet frail, and ever so smart.  She broke my heart, but really, all three ladies did.  Laurie Metcalf is once again pitch-perfect - she is never anything other than absolutely believable and when I tell you she scared me to death talking about being halfway done with life, believe me.  Chills.  Allison Pill was also terrific - I can't imagine it was easy standing up with Jackson and Metcalf, but she went for it, full out, and grabbed her share.  I enjoyed her performance very much.

The physical production and the direction were also sublime - the way the physical world morphs and expands between the first and second acts was fantastic.  I enjoyed seeing the play without an intermission; it made the sense that we were in the fractured mind of this woman on the precipice of death even more tangible.  The last image?  Breathtaking.  Oh, and the use of The Boy?  Heartbreaking, on so many levels.  Too many to talk about without crying again.  So I'll just stop trying to talk - please, everyone, go see this marvelous production.  You will not be sorry, I guarantee.  I am so grateful to my handsome Tony voter friend for taking me and I can hardly wait to go back.  Maybe I'll see you there!