Issue date: September 15, 1999
By BRYAN WIGGIN
As a vehicle for a couple of appealing performers, Douglas Carter Beane's "As Bees in Honey Drown" is a pretty good play. As a vehicle for emotional and intellectual content, it's pretty thin. Fortunately, the current TheatreWorks production comes through with the performers.
A farcical look at the ephemeral nature of fame, and the bogus way in which it is often acquired, "Bees" is about a young novelist whose first novel does less to propel him into the limelight than does a sexy, shirt-off photo of him on the cover of a trendy New York magazine. Evan Wyler (his name changed from Eric Wallenstein) is taken up by the glamorous, enigmatic, energetic, charismatic Alexa Vere de Vere. Having known everyone and been everywhere, she now wants Evan to write the screenplay of the story of her life.
She dazzles the green youth with her worldly ways and her promises of the fame he hungers for. But before long, the necessary accouterments of this climb to the top are being paid for by Evan, and it's not a great surprise when Alexa turns out to be a huckster who has left a trail of fleeced sheep in her wake.
Act I begins with a dazzling performance by Rebecca Dines, a frequent TheatreWorks star, as Alexa. At the Hotel Paramount, as she regales Evan with the story of her life, Ms. Dines puts color and character into every syllable. She pouts and purrs, she postures and preens, while using her smoky voice, beautiful face, and alluring figure to captivate the audience as well as her intended prey. It's a virtuosic performance.
Ms. Dines is at this high level throughout the play, but the play is not always up to her standard. When, early in Act II, Evan is given the lowdown on Alexa by Morris Koden, one of her earliest victims, we are presented with a lengthy reprise of that earlier scene. Alexa joins in to flesh out the flashback, and much of the earlier dialogue is repeated verbatim. But all that's really happening is that Morris is telling Evan, "She took you." The lengthy repetition of amusing lines adds nothing to our knowledge, and the lines are not so amusing the second time around.
There is more overkill in another long scene in Act II. Alexa has told Evan that her first husband, Michael Stabinsky, was a wealthy, generous, older man who killed himself when she refused to abandon the whirl of her early fame in London for a quiet life with him. But Evan finds that Michael is neither elderly nor dead, but is, in fact, a young painter in New York.
Michael regales Evan with the story of how he and Alexa, back when her name was Brenda Gelb, came to New York from a lower-class life in Pennsylvania. Finding success elusive, and even survival difficult, they turned their loft into the Blue In The Face art gallery, created a new identity for Brenda, and buffaloed Gotham's gullible sophisticates into buying out Michael's one-man show.
The information in this scene is not great, but the time taken for Michael and Brenda/Alexa to act it out, is. They squeal and laugh at their own cleverness, and watch a lot of old movies to find a model for Brenda's new persona. Some of it's funny and entertaining, but it goes on too long.
Evan finally obtains revenge by writing the simple truth about Alexa, and settling into a happy homosexual relationship with Michael.
This is a zippy, energetic, fast-paced production, smartly directed by Danny Scheie. The music, from sound designer Robby MacLean, is loud; the lights, by Steven B. Mannshardt, are bright; and the set and costumes, from Iva Walton and Ardith Ann Gray, are vivid.
Michael DeGood gives a good performance as Evan, and the others in the cast -- Jackson Davis, Francis Jue, Alexis Lezin, and ej Ndeto, all taking multiple roles -- are fine. But, really, the show belongs to Rebecca Dines. She shines.
DATABOX, PUT AT END
"As Bees in Honey Drown," by Douglas Carter Beane, is being presented by TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts through September 3. For information, call 903-6000, or contact the web site www.theatreworks.org.
© 1999 The Almanac. All Rights Reserved.