Recipe for making a classic one-woman show: Find a three-time Tony award winner; add a playwright whose previous one-woman show has been seen world-wide; stir in a director who has thirty-five years of experience working with great actresses of our time . . . The batter is obviously good, but, after baking, will it be disappointing?
Absolutely not! Zoe Caldwell rises to become the fascinating - albeit proud - character of Lillian Hellman in author William Luce's Lillian script, which is at least as arresting as his Belle of Amherst. Director Robert Whitehead has made both a meal and a dessert out of the piece.
Actually, the dessert comes first. Imagine Caldwell as Hellman doing a Tallulah Bankhead imitation: "Cocaine is NOT addictive. I know. … I've been doing it for years." Regarding Norma Shearer, Hellman observes, she has a pleasant face, "unclouded by thought." (A good crust on this dessert.)
The hashing out of Hellman's testimony to McCarthy Un-American Activities Committee proves to be a great and meaty stuff. There is, admittedly, a rather ridiculous recording of voices to represent the "Committee," but it all builds to Hillman's great line, "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions" - making us all glad they made the mistake of putting Lillian on the stand.
Caldwell gets fine opportunities in this script to be steeped in the person of Hellman whose relationship with Dashiell Hammett at times, evidently tortured her. Clever scripting allows us to see their romance in its budding and, later, in its fine
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