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Jamie Dufault as Buster Keaton
Carrara Photography 2011
Back in Black
Lenny Schwartz's previous Daydream Theatre effort, 'Black Friday', was a surrealistic playground set in a shopping mall. That play had questionable results, but Schwartz visits the word Black again, and this time he hits paydirt. This Buster Keaton bio-drama is taut, well-written and deftly executed. The word "charming" comes to mind while watching the performance, but that almost sounds patronizing. 'Buster Keaton: Fade To Black' has a depth that comes naturally, a ton of expository information that still manages to be entertaining and germane to the characters...as light and breezy as this show appears, there is a lot lurking just beneath the surface. Just, as Schwartz would have us believe, like Buster Keaton himself.
The main conceit here is simple, but ingeniously effective: we see a young Buster Keaton introduced into the world of "moving pictures" and, on his first visit to the set, he becomes fascinated by the camera. He asks his new acquaintance, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, if he can borrow the camera for the evening. When asked why, he explains that he wants to take it apart, piece by piece, and put it together again. In the process, he hopes, he'll find out where everything fits - where *he* fits - in the story. His story. At this point we find out that Buster is his own narrator (along with everyone he encounters). While we get a small dose of talking head narration at the start, we're slowly enveloped in a world that is part past, part present and a lot of sliding in between. It's a powerful means of telling Buster's story without losing the flow of the drama. Keaton's conflicts become the conflicts of the story. Buster's wife, Natalie (played with a beautifully subtle fury by Sarah Bedard) tells Buster the things that *will* happen to him, or *did* happen to him, but never falls into the trap of telling us, the audience, a litany of facts that have no place in the world of the play. This is crucial, for Schwartz has found a way to make factual drama live and breathe. Unlike, say 'The Murder Trial of John Gordon' or even 'The Buddy Holly Story' which hit RI stages this past year, we're never left feeling as if we're watching a documentary or attending a lecture. 'Fade To Black' stands alone as a bittersweet comic drama, regardless of the accuracy of its content.
As Buster Keaton, Jamie Dufault delivers a star turn, recreating the pratfalls and physical comedy with ease, but also showing us a man in limbo. He lives in a purgatory of our world, his world and the reality of each of his supporting cast. His main struggle throughout is to "change the ending", to somehow find a place along his own timeline where he can divert his public fall from grace. Dufault allows us to believe that it just may be possible even while he tells us "this already happened." Keaton was a man with a lot of pain, both real and imagined, and Dufault avoids the trap of becoming whiny or strident. It is a quiet pain that hides behind his comedy and his wide open eyes. He appears ghostlike, dead already, struggling with reality in order to find out what it was he truly wanted in his lifetime. By the end of his journey, we see him react fully to the answers he finds along the way.
Dufault's struggles are more than simply internal; on opening night, in a wonderful bit of physical comedy and improv, he navigated a combination of wardrobe malfunction and prop failure that brought unintended hilarity to the end of a stark and harrowing scene of an asylum nightmare that finds Buster wrapped in a straightjacket and spun around in a wheelchair, taunted and abused by everyone in his life. He finds solace only in the ghost of his best friend, Fatty Arbuckle (Ed Higgins), who shared Keaton's rejection by the public and studios. In what was meant to be a display of Houdini-inspired illusion came a delicious interchange between two actors who were able to turn what could have been an awkward stage moment into a further comedic insight into their friendship. We wouldn't be surprised if this "accident" was worked into the show from now on.
Also of note is John Faiola's Lou Anger, Buster's longtime aide de camp. He seems plucked from the period and, at times, forces those around him to fight to be noticed in the light of his spirited, clownish (but never foolish) character work. Ryan Hanley's double duty performance displays a physical agility and comic timing that complements Dufault as both a scene partner and comedic foil.
Even performances that may be less inspired are still more than adequate to tell this story. And 'Fade To Black' is filled with what seems like dozens of singular characters, all important to Buster's story, including an overly exuberant Theater Worker who hawks Keaton's latest films to the audience in what amounts to a hilarious, yet informative montage. Once again, this is the strength of Schwartz's script, where he finds amusing, novel ways to keep the plot moving. We're entertained first...and then we realize we were fed more exposition as well. Other local playwrights, take note: this is how it's done.
All of this is served well by a gorgeous, open set, complete with footlights, that resembles both a vaudeville stage and a Twenties movie set. A bar sits upstage, an ever present symbol of Keaton's growing alcoholism. Spinning, three-sided platforms (sometimes referred to as "periaktoi") serve utilitarian purposes for entrances, additional rooms and general "other". There is no mention of a designer in any of the materials available to the public, so we assume that Producer Jim Belanger aided in this task, along with Schwartz, who also tackled directing his own script (a practice not often met with results this focused). Entrants to Bell Street Chapel are greeted with a gramophone playing period music on 78rpm records in the lobby, music that actually would have served the production well. There does seem room for multimedia elements here, but overguessing the production choices betrays how well everything does work. The costumes, apparently supplemented by Trinity Rep, are (mostly) perfectly period and the requisite pork pie hat has place of pride.
'Fade To Black' is heartfelt, funny (even campy in just the right places) and delivers enough empathetic chills to induce repeated viewings. There is an abundance of Theater in Rhode Island this month...you could do far worse than to put Daydream on your short list before this show closes on the 16th. And, we predict a spike in Buster Keaton films in everyone's Netflix queue in the next few weeks.
Daydream Theatre Co. presents Lenny Schwartz's 'Buster Keaton: Fade to Black.'
March 31, April 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 16, 2011. All shows start at 8pm. The play will be presented at the Bell Street Chapel, 5 Bell Street in Providence, RI. For more information, visit www.daydreamtheatre.com
Tickets are available for purchase on www.smarttix.com . The cost is $10 General Admission and $5 for Students/Seniors. Arrive early to navigate a tricky parking lot and one-way streets.
