Theatre in Review: Like They Do in the Movies (Perelman Arts Center)

	Laurence Fishburne. Photo: Joan Marcus

Like any actor with a distinguished career spanning half a century, Laurence Fishburne has plenty of stories to tell. Now he has assembled a bunch of them into a grab bag of an evening that highlights his spellbinding way with a monologue. Like They Do in the Movies is a less-than-felicitous title: It suggests an evening of reports from the sets of Apocalypse Now, The Matrix, and the John Wick films, among others, and I hope someday we get that. (He may have to wait until he is no longer available for stage and film work before telling such tales out of school.) This time out, however, the actor has taken a two-pronged approach, resulting in a piece that is, frankly, unclassifiable if never boring.

Like They Do in the Movies is a collection of character turns based on people Fishburne has encountered over the years. (As he wryly notes, some of this material is true.) They include the husband of a New Orleans doctor who, during Hurricane Katrina, hunkers down in a hospital with his wife and their infant child; a homeless man who gets by washing cars and cleaning stoops in Greenwich Village; an ex-cop turned bodyguard who, watching over the actor on a film set, knits sweaters and details a complicated personal life that includes a romantic triangle and a narrowly beat manslaughter charge; and the co-owner (with his wife) of a state-sanctioned Australian brothel ("Our business is your pleasure").

Perhaps the evening's biggest revelation is that you can add "writer" to Fishburne's resume, as each of these pieces is funny, insightful, and well-paced. The Katrina episode is more than that, providing a hair-raising account of endurance in a massive natural disaster even as the city blacks out and the hospital's body count keeps rising. (The image of George W. Bush, flying overhead on Air Force One while the narrator and his cohort frantically signal to be rescued, is especially devastating.) The car washer, a vividly realized street hustler, has some amusing things to say about his sometime clients Wesley Snipes and John Gotti, and the bodyguard deftly demonstrates his tactics for fending off rubberneckers looking to connect with a real-life celebrity. You may find yourself wondering about the rationale behind this collection of unrelated episodes, but you can't deny that each is a sharply etched portrait.

Wrapped around these episodes is Fishburne's account of growing up in the shadows of his difficult parents. His mother Hattie, a classic case of narcissistic personality disorder, runs a charm school, self-medicates with booze and pills, sexually abuses her son, and generally makes like Gypsy's Madame Rose, pushing him into acting while still in grade school. His father, who lives with another woman, comes and goes erratically, leaving the young Fishburne feeling sadly neglected. Of course, such self-involved creatures only become more difficult with age; a nagging question about paternity, the details not to be revealed here, causes a years-long mother-son estrangement. But Fishburne also consciously chooses to care for both parents at the end of their lives, making a massive deposit in the karma bank. His conversations with Hattie, suffering from dementia but still lively and fishing for a compliment, is a powerful study of loss and forgiveness.

Still, it's hard to shake the helter-skelter feeling with which Like They Do in the Movies is imbued. Even at its most captivating, you may find yourself asking why Fishburne has chosen these portraits and what they have to do with his problematic family life. (He mentions his mother's abuse without really grappling with its long-term effects; there may be another show in that.) It adds up to an unfocused display of raw talent; certainly, the star's many fans won't mind, and if this piece signals a career transition, then fair enough. But there are many moments when the star's intentions seem strangely uncertain.

And, at the performance I attended, Fishburne at times seemed uncertain, calling for lines several times. Still, his magnetism prevails and, in other respects, Leonard Foglia's production is assured. This is especially true of the production design: Neil Patel places projection screens on turntables behind a scrim, allowing Elaine J. McCarthy to create astonishingly layered and evocative imagery of, among other things, New York streets. (She also makes excellent use of Fishburne family photos.) The sophistication of this design approach is aided in no small degree by lighting designer Tyler Micoleau. It's a striking achievement and I wish I knew how they did it. Justin Ellington's sound design livens this up via such musical selections as Quincy Jones' "Summer in the City," Donald Byrd's "Places and Spaces," and War's "Spill the Wine."

It all adds up to a genial, if faintly mystifying, evening, the latest attraction in a new venue still in the process of establishing its identity. Fishburne clearly has plenty of rich material at his disposal; here's hoping he continues to develop it. --David Barbour