| . | 05/10/2009
Accent on Youth
By: Andy Smith
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| Accent on Youth stars Mary Catherine Garrison and David Hyde Pierce. | |
| photo by Joan Marcus | |
Though he wrote a handful of successful Broadway productions over a span of three decades, Samson Raphaelson is best remembered today for two major contributions to film history.
First, Warner Brothers’ 1927 film of his semi-autobiographic play The Jazz Singer (he was the son of rabbi) ushered in talking pictures. Second, as screenwriter and collaborator with the great Ernst Lubitsch, Raphaelson was the bridge between the expatriate German director and the American vernacular. He provided much of the foundation, while Lubitsch added his famous “touch.”
What's the difference between Samson the solo playwright and Sam the screenwriter? As Lubitsch's scribe, he created Trouble in Paradise (1932) and The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and other classic, beautifully nuanced comedies worth a dozen viewings. As the author of Skylark (1939), The Perfect Marriage (1944) and 1934's Accent on Youth, now revived for a limited engagement by Manhattan Theatre Club, he drafted competent middlebrow comedies that provide an enjoyable two hours in the theatre.
And there's nothing wrong with that. Especially when the revival is comfortably directed by Daniel Sullivan (Proof) and serves as a vehicle for the always enjoyable David Hyde Pierce as playwright Stephen Gaye.
Known for his light comedies, Gaye, whose age waffles somewhere between 49 and 55, is working on Old Love, an aptly titled drama about a man of 60 who leaves his wife for a much-younger woman.
About to abandon the effort, a confab with Linda Brown (Mary Catherine Garrison), his secretary and unacknowledged muse, leads the playwright to rework the piece as a comedy with the girl chasing the much-older man. Frumpish Linda then proceeds to tell the oblivious Gaye that she's in love with him.
Over the next two acts various complications ensue—Old Love is a modest success, its old star becomes catnip to kittens, and Linda becomes the play’s leading lady and marries her young leading man, with Gaye's support. Of course, this being a comedy, she realizes her error and returns to Pierce's character before the final curtain.
Pierce is ideal for a piece of this type, making his work look effortless, and gets wonderful support from his male costars, including David Furr (good as a vain, athletic young actor), Byron Jennings (wonderful in a difficult drunk scene) as the actor who plays "Old" in Gaye's play, and especially Charles Kimbrough, back on Broadway and doing an excellent job as the star's multi-faceted butler, Flogdell. After years as the one-dimensional anchor "Jim Dial" on "Murphy Brown," Kimbrough's nuanced work here is almost a revelation.
The women in the cast fare a little less well. Lisa Banes is fine in a small supporting role, but as Genevieve Lang (a great name for an actress), one of Gaye's 'old loves,' Rosie Benton pushes too hard for 1930s-style sophistication.
As the object of Gaye’s affection, Mary Catherine Garrison is excellent in her early scenes, as a bright, cute secretary, but less secure later on, after she’s become a star in his play. A note of warning: Garrison (Top Girls) played Squeaky Fromme in the revival of Sondheim’s Assassins and in a number of scenes her high-pitched voice crosses the line into shrillness.
Raphaelson's original piece, a solid but unspectacular success on Broadway in 1934, was filmed three times, first in 1935 with Herbert Marshall, Sylvia Sidney and a well chosen supporting cast, including Ernest Cossart, repeating his stage role as Flogdell.
The play's structure – older man chased by younger woman – was a perfect match for Hollywood in the 1950s, when, much like today, the town was filled with aging male stars like Gary Cooper and Humphrey Bogart romancing Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and actresses who could have been their granddaughters.
In 1950, it was dusted off as the regrettable Bing Crosby vehicle Mr. Music, and later for Clark Gable in the still-amusing But Not for Me (1959), in which the grizzled but still appealing star played an aging Broadway producer who ends up with the more age-appropriate Lilli Palmer, rather than secretary Carroll Baker.
With MTC’s production, however, the combination of the youthful Pierce and common-sensical Garrison makes the May/November romance plausible.
through June 28 at Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre 261 W. 47th St
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