By Davida Singer
Last year, the Piccadillo Theater Company hit pay dirt with their revival of “The Shanghai Gesture”, a lurid melodrama from the 1920’s. The production was such a smash, Artistic Director Dan Wackerman quickly started plans to remount it, but hit a major snag this summer when problems arose around the play’s rights.
“Everything was at a halt,” recalls Wackerman, “and in the meantime, we had a show to do for this fall. A theater friend happened to tell me about S.N. Behrman’s “Jane”, which also hadn’t been revived since its original Broadway run in 1952. I went off to the library to read it, and sat there laughing my head off. It’s a wicked comedy of manners in the English style. We decided to do it, so this play really came to our rescue.”
Wackerman and Piccadillo have been in the rescue business themselves since he founded the company ten years ago, with the specific mission of producing the so-called “well made plays” of the American theater from 1915-65, beginning with Eugene O’Neil.
“We look for the forgotten works in that repertoire,” Wackerman explains. “Jane” is a perfect example. It’s a real reintroduction to Berhman, who wrote over 70 Broadway plays in his career, and liked to probe the psyche of the privileged class.”
What makes his work so special?
“Behrman was one of the great writers of dialogue. It absolutely sparkles in a lapidary, well-honed style, and this play doesn’t want to be cut at all. He was such an excellent craftsman, in the tradition of the 400 year-old Restoration Comedy, complete with innuendo and double entendre. “Jane” is set in a 1930’s drawing room, of course, and it will acquaint a younger audience with what wit really is, because the play is all so beautifully arrayed in it.”
The plot for “Jane”, based on a short story by Somerset Maugham, revolves around Millicent Tower, a London society hostess and butterfly, whose current social life includes an estranged husband still hanging about. Enter Jane, the dowdy sister-in-law from Liverpool, with a remarkable ability of telling the truth.
“She’s direct to a fault,” notes Wackerman, “and truly the opposite of those she meets. Jane eventually attempts to save Millicent’s daughter’s relationship with her beau.
It’s really the story of an outsider who arrives and puts everyone’s lives to right, whether they want it or not, and it’s a comedy of puncturing social pretensions. Also, with the looming presence of World War II, it’s clear the characters are living in shifting times, which gives the play emotional depth and saves it from being just fluffy. It becomes strangely relevant for right now.”
According to Wackerman, scenic designer Chris Jones has whipped up a bold art deco townhouse set “without a right angle in view”, and couched it comfortably in the 83-seat Bank Street Theater. The cast – featuring Susan Jeffries, Leila Martin and Richard Benkins – provided “very high level acting and trust”, and the only real challenge was a four-week rehearsal schedule to pull everything in shape.
“I hope this will bring renewed appreciation of Behrman and the play itself,” the director adds, “and we’d also like our company to be better known. We’ve just celebrated our 10th anniversary this month, and our new goal is to grow to the point of having a larger theater. Hopefully, things are ripe for that. We’re truly dedicated to classic American theater, and now these plays are coming into fashion again.”
