Theatre in Review: Happy Birthday (The Actors Company Theatre/Theatre Row)

	Victoria Mack, Todd Gearhart, Mary Bacon. Photo Hunter Canning

Joshua Logan writes in his memoirs that, having staged Annie Get Your Gun for producers Rodgers and Hammerstein, he was told by the latter that they were eager to work with him again. "That, I hope, meant the next Rodgers and Hammerstein musical," he recalled, "but instead they asked me to direct a new play Anita Loos had written for Helen Hayes, Happy Birthday."

I can sympathize with Logan's disappointment, for Happy Birthday -- which, admittedly, ran over 500 performances and netted Tony Awards for Hayes and the costume designer, Lucinda Ballard -- is a distinctly odd proposition. Loos wrote it as a vehicle for Hayes to cut loose after several seasons spent reigning over the British Empire and freeing the slaves in such uplift-ridden dramas as Victoria Regina and Harriet. An unmitigated disaster in its first performance in Boston, Happy Birthday was massaged into a hit by Logan, who, working with Loos, took the script apart line by line, putting it back together and making a crowd pleaser of it. Logan adds that, aside from Brooks Atkinson in the Times, the reviews were unfavorable. "But even the worst notices included phrases like 'And in this god-awful play Helen Hayes gets drunk, dances, sings, recites poetry, climbs under a table, and has an affair with a younger man.'" The ticket-buying public, intrigued, showed up in droves.

I can imagine many theatre fans will be unable to resist the siren call of Scott Alan Evans' revival of Happy Birthday, if only for the chance to check out a long-forgotten Broadway artifact. It has a number of things going for it, including an inventive design, some zesty wisecracks, and solidly amusing performances by several members of the supporting cast. But the spirit of Helen Hayes has left the building, and with it has gone any real reason for presenting Happy Birthday.

The play is set in the Jersey Mecca Bar, where "through these portals pass the nicest people in Newark." In true star-vehicle fashion, Loos assembles the supporting characters who present the exposition, sketch in a couple of subplots, and prep the entrance of the star part. And what a part: She is Addie Bemis, a prim, pale little thing who works as a librarian, takes in boarders, and tends to her alcoholic, abusive father. The only bright spot in her gray existence is Paul, the bank teller to whom she gives her weekly deposits; too bad he doesn't know she's alive.

Unfortunately, Mr. Bemis knows Paul is alive. During an argument with her father, Addie has confessed her secret passion, and the old man has hit the streets of Newark, determined to beat the tar out of Paul. Addie shows up at the Jersey Mecca to warn the young man; she is as out of place there as she would be in the real Mecca, but, after a couple of pink ladies, a few shots of scotch, and additional libations, she is singing, dancing, offering shockingly frank opinions, and making a determined play for Paul while his fiancée looks in on in a fury.

Apparently, audiences loved seeing Hayes, whose persona was marked by a certain hard-nosed, common-sense aspect, carry on as Addie. Mary Bacon, the star of Evans' production, is a fine, intelligent, truthful actress, but she may be too truthful for the comic artifice of Loos' script. Her Addie is defined by a pathetic little-bird quality; she is so nervous, so uncertain, so obviously starved for love that watching her get drunk and act out is often painful rather than amusing. Also, as Logan writes, "Helen's role was written in an odd schizophrenic way. In one breath, she was mealy-mouthed, and in the next, she was abrasive, sharp, and bitchy." This problem has not been solved in the current production; when Bacon isn't making like a mouse, she has an unpleasant, hard-edged manner. Worse, she has little or no chemistry with Todd Gearhart as Paul; it's hard to imagine a future where he and Addie end up together.

There are compensations in the supporting cast, including Karen Ziemba, as the tough, but good-hearted, manager of the Jersey Mecca; Victoria Mack as Todd's fiancée, a woman of vaulting ambitions and limited vocabulary ("This rain, it's...wet."); and Nora Chester and Darrie Lawrence as a couple of old biddies who enjoy stirring up a spot of trouble for their own entertainment. The denizens of the Jersey Mecca are good company even when Addie is behaving in a distinctly alarming manner.

Happy Birthday was famous for its scenic design, by Jo Mielziner, in which the set was transformed as Addie slipped into her cups. Brett J. Banakis, the current production's designer, has created a delightfully moody bar set, riffing off the Mecca idea to give it a "Moorish" look; it's exactly the kind of dimly lit place you might go to forget your troubles if you were in Newark in 1946. (I especially love the period jukebox, which eerily resembles Robby the Robot in the MGM film Forbidden Planet.) Banakis' set also undergoes an amusing transformation, with the upstage wall rising to new heights and rows of Chinese lanterns flying in as Addie passes into a drunken haze. He is aided by Paul Hackenmueller's expert lighting, which goes from a cold, rainy-night look to a warmly welcoming Technicolor glow. In Banakis' biggest coup, a pink tablecloth expands and flies out into the house, creating a kind of tent for the scene in which Addie and Paul share a private moment under a table. Given a cross-section of characters, Campbell Baird dresses each of them with meticulous attention to period and character details. Bart Fasbender's sound design includes an evocative playlist of period tunes, including "In the Mood," "Stardust," and (a new one on me) "Who Threw That Whiskey in the Well."

I hasten to add that even when I criticize T.A.C.T.'s productions, I remain permanently grateful for the chance to see such dramatic rarities. But there's no pretending that Happy Birthday really works. Perhaps because the play's impact depends on so many visual effects, it seemed like a likely choice, but actually this one might have been better off in the company's Salon Series of play readings.--David Barbour