The Tony award winning play, City of Angels, transports its audience to the evocative world of 1940s Hollywood with a noir edge. From the beginning, as the halting baritone of the narrator’s voice introduces Stone (Curt Fennell) a cigarette smoking detective so moral that he is flat broke from refusing cases, the audience encounters a world of glamour, sardonic jabs, and euphemisms.
The musical is a play within a play. Novelist Stine (Todd Yard) is attempting to adapt his best-seller into a motion picture. He is struggling, however, with the producer’s insistence on changing the plot to better fit a Hollywood image. As he tells his story of re-writing each page as the narcissistic mogul Buddy Fidler (Kevin Cirone) breathes down his neck, the audience sees lines of dialogue from his daily life recycled into the screenplay and lines from his books repeated back to him from acquaintances. In this way, the two storylines blur into a continuous story in which each scene helps to explain previous occurrences and foreshadow future relationships.
Admittedly, the dual storylines are jarring at times. Occasionally, the stage is split between Stine working on one side and the characters acting on the other. Stine types, and the characters speak. His phone rings, and they pause. He rips the paper angrily from his machine, and they rewind their movements like robots until the perfect one-liner is finally delivered.
Center Front: Todd Yard (Stine). Left to Right: Mandy Mitchell (Mallory/Avril), Shonna McEachern (Bobbi/Gabby), Jennifer Honen Galea (Alaura/Carla), and Hilary Chadwick (Oolie/Donna)
Stine’s alter ego Stone is a suave and steely detective, constantly confronted by beautiful women, but just a little too moral to give in. While Stine is equally adroit, he cheats on his wife freely, writing conviction into Stone that he himself does not possess. It seems that Stine cannot write a character completely separate from himself, however. While Stone is quick to take a punch, like Stine he is a little too hesitant to punch back.
Though the screenplay Stine writes is based on a runaway girl and possible murder, clever banter between Stone and his secretary Oolie (Hilary Chadwick) quickly lightens the noir mood. Together, they mock Alaura, a cougar dressed in white, married to a 75-year-old man and fooling around with her step-son. As she enters the room with all the confidence of Jessica Rabbit, anxious to convince the detective for help with her plight, Stone remarks that the floor is the only thing that kept Alaura’s legs from going on for miles.
The music of City of Angels ranges from melancholy jazz solos from Stone’s lost love Bobbi (Shonna McEachern) to Jimmy Power’s (Christopher King) crooning love songs, backed by a half-drunk four-part chorus. Notable songs include Gabby and Oolie’s You Don’t Know About Women, a flippant duet sung to berate the womanizing Stine and Stone. The Tennis Song, an absurdly euphemistic duet with Alaura and Stone, with lyrics such as: “I may lack form and finesse, but I warm up in a jiff / It’s not exciting unless the competition is stiff.”
Center Front: Todd Yard (Stine). Center Top: Curt Fennell (Stone). Clockwise from Center Front: Mandy Mitchell (Mallory/Avril), Shonna McEachern (Bobbi/Gabby), Jennifer Honen Galea (Alaura/Carla), and Hilary Chadwick (Oolie/Donna)
In fact, City of Angels frequently embraces the absurd. The audience meets Luther Kingsley (Jeff Phillips), Alaura’s husband, trapped in an iron lung, scarcely able to talk. Agent Buddy Fidler chides Stine on the phone for his overly racialized plot as Filder receives a haircut. As Stine relents and the phone call ends, Fidler tells barber, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” As Jimmy Powers sings his exaggerated Stay With Me, his back-up singers pass a flask around and hold side conversations. Luther Kingsley’s “spiritual therapist” waves with arms and rings a tiny bell, advocating healing as a journey to the center of truth.
Despite the comedic release, City of Angels is ultimately the story of the novelist Stine, his tumultuous relationship with his wife and his internal struggle to “sell-out” to Hollywood in exchange for money and fame. He is not an especially likeable character: he cheats on his wife, he lies to her about cheating, he is egotistical about “lessening the integrity” of his novel, he sighs and complains without speaking up for himself. He is flawed.
Through the screenplay, however, we realize the person Stine wants to be: the rough-around the edges, secret hero Stone, still in love with the girl that got away. He is writing to become more like Stone. He is writing to find his way to redemption, to play the part of virtuous detective, willing to starve rather than accept a dishonest job. This realization redeems Stine.
And as Stine rushes onto the film set to halt production and save his vision of Stone, he is finally able to leave his type-writer and take action. He is finally able to play the part he had always intended for himself.
This final blurring of lines between the screenplay and reality proves the only truth Fidler conveys: “We are all on film, sometimes we just turn the camera on.”
The Longwood Players’ City of Angels, through May 1st, with evening performances Thursday through Saturday and a 2:00 pm matinée on Saturday May 1st @ the Central Square YMCA theater. Tickets: $16-$25 all dates.
