A celebrity is found beaten and murdered not far from her California home. The press hounds her estranged husband, demanding to know his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Gossip columnists and tabloid journalists have a field day as their type of salacious story finds validity in the mainstream press.
fTC Sound familiar? Well, despite the similarities, "Hyde in Hollywood," which is receiving its Baltimore premiere at Fell's Point Corner Theatre, is not a play about the O. J. Simpson case. It's set in 1939, and it made its off-Broadway debut five years ago.
Playwright Peter Parnell does seem to have modeled his characters after real-life celebrities, however. The scandal-mongering columnist he calls Hollywood Confidential is a clone of Walter Winchell, and Julian Hyde, the recent widower whom Confidential pursues, is a movie director who bears some resemblance to Orson Welles.
Director Barry Feinstein doesn't emphasize the play's topical resonances. They're so obvious, he doesn't have to.
Instead, Feinstein has tried something more unusual. In an apparent attempt to enhance the fantasy-versus-reality theme of this cynical play about the Hollywood film industry, he has interspersed black-and-white film segments, directed by Steve Yeager, at crucial points between scenes.
The film clips -- which take the form of silent newsreel footage of such events as Hyde meeting his wife and her eventual murder -- are such fluid, natural additions that it's difficult to imagine the play without them. They also, however, point up some of the production's less fluid elements, which include cumbersome rotating scenery and a cast of 19, not all of whom project a convincing 1930s aura.
The leads, however, have a good grasp of their characters, particularly Tony Colavito as muckraking, Red- and gay-baiting Confidential -- a man as obsessed with exposing the underbelly of celebrity as he is with becoming a celebrity himself. A scene in which Confidential breaks down in the middle of a live radio broadcast is the best performance I've seen by this talented actor.
The film Julian Hyde is directing and starring in is a "Citizen
Kane"-like expose of a megalomaniac, and after Hyde is pilloried by Confidential, he bases it on him. Mark E. Campion's Hyde is a smooth character; his name refers to the fact that he has a secret life hidden behind his suave persona. But as Hyde gets more and more into his portrayal, he becomes more and more like Confidential, and Campion and Colavito do an impressive job mimicking each other as they turn into their characters' own worst nightmares.
The performance that feels truest to the period is Rebecca Joseph's depiction of Confidential's lovestruck secretary -- a woman with far more guts and heart than her boss. Also noteworthy are Bruce Godfrey as a fatherly studio head and Michael Salconi as Hyde's close friend.
Revisionist looks at the so-called glory days of Hollywood seem to be the rage right now. "Sunset Boulevard" is a megahit on Broadway, Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway" has brought the director his best notices in years, and there's even a brand new, acclaimed biography of Walter Winchell. So Fell's Point Corner's timing couldn't be better -- even without the Simpson trial. While the play itself proves a bit overwhelming for this small theater, Feinstein and company deserve credit for taking creative risks with a large and difficult script.
"Hyde in Hollywood"
Where: Fell's Point Corner Theatre, 251 S. Ann St.
When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; through Dec. 18
Tickets: $10
Call: (410) 276-7837
** 1/2