“Above Suspicion,” was the final film Joan Crawford made as a contract player for MGM Studios; a 1943 espionage caper co-starring Fred MacMurray.
It’s also a reasonable assessment of the sincere fandom that fuels “Joan Crawford Superstar,” an earnest, sporadically delightful scrapbook-style tribute to the legend, born Lucille LeSueur, now playing at Theater 33 just off Union Square. (A display of Crawford memorabilia festoons the second-floor lobby).
Rather than the camped-up, dragged-down Crawford caricatures served up by cabaret impersonators and film and television productions like “Mommie Dearest” and “Feud,” writer/director Chris Chase presents an unequivocally adoring portrait of the actress, one of the biggest Hollywood stars to successfully cross over from silent films to talkies, and a powerful proto-feminist.
TCM enthusiasts and longtime Crawford fans will find plenty to enjoy here. And members of Generations X and younger will learn that those perennially popular gay bar film clips of Dunaway-as-Crawford-as-Hag don’t tell the whole story: Oh boy did they fuck with her, fellas!
Hooray for Ally-wood!
Chase’s script emphasizes Crawford’s unwillingness to be subjugated as a woman in the studio system, her impressive business skills, and, most engagingly, her empathetic support of gay actor William “Billy” Haines.
Haines is played with tangy citric sweetness by Max Seijas, an always welcome presence on Bay Area stages. Here, even in several smaller parts as journalists interviewing Crawford, he brings a vivid three-dimensionality to his characterizations.
While Billy armors himself with flippant quips, Seijas simultaneously projects an underlying confidence. And in one of his reporter roles, Seijas gives us a fellow asquirm with glee, trying to remain professional while suppressing his inner fanboy.
Such robust moments are also occasionally provided by Erica Flor, in multiple roles; Richard Wenzel, whose Louis B. Mayer is a charming scoundrel; and Isabel DiGrandi and Donna Turner, who both play versions of Crawford. At those times, the show has the liveliness of a pop-up book, but the storytelling too often recedes into PowerPoint flatness.
Clips and convergence
The lack of vivacity is largely tied to a narrative structure that asks the audience to frequently shift attention between scenes centered on DiGrandi’s younger Joan to Turner’s later-life version. Rather than allowing us to become fully immersed in the story, these alternating timeframes create a repeated dunk-in/yank-out experience.
Virtually every scene offers a nugget or two of crunchy Crawfordiana, but their aggregate feels more like documentation than drama. (Wonderfully, Chase’s costumes, from gauzy flapper dresses to feathered hats to fur-trimmed capes look so authentic, it’s like they’re right out of a documentary, too).
Both actresses playing Joan bring strong physical and vocal presence to the role: DiGrandi’s shoulder rolls and precisely metered gait convey young Crawford’s strategic, self-aware seductiveness. Turner gives her older version a perpetual, deflecting nonplussedness; a captured animal, too proud to lick its wounds.
But because we experience their performances in what feel like rapid-fire clips rather than full-length scenes, there’s never a palpable sense of rising tension or climax.
Chase’s script incorporates a dual timeline that, while intriguing and ambitious, doesn’t pay off dramatically. As scenes alternate over the production’s 80 minutes, we are meant to simultaneously follow young Joan, beginning in 1925, as she goes from ingenue to Oscar-winner (Best Actress, 1946, for “Mildred Pierce”); and older Joan, beginning in 1977 (the year of her death), as she moves backward from old age to that same Oscar.
While it’s easy to understand the normal chronological progression of young Joan’s scenes, it’s virtually impossible to grasp older Joan’s reverse trajectory without detailed knowledge of Crawford’s biography (There are no make-up or costume cues to let us know she’s growing more youthful as the show progresses).
Despite its flaws (and in light of its ambition), “Joan Crawford Superstar” is a welcome debut from Intentional Theatrics, the Bay Area’s newest production company. Their performance space, in the Shelton Theater building, was home to the late lamented Custom Made Theatre.
During a week when federal grants are being rescinded from companies including TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, New Conservatory Theatre Center and Berkeley Repertory, it’s heartening to see such new creativity and tenacity on the rise.
‘Joan Crawford Superstar,’ $39-$49, Fri/Sat 7:30pm, Sat/Sun 2pm thru May 18. Theater 33. 533 Sutter St. http://www.intentionaltheatrics.com
