Theatre in Review: Becoming Dr. Ruth (Westside Theatre)

	Debra Jo Rupp. Photo: Carol Rosegg

If we must have these one-person, story-of-my-life exercises, we'll be lucky if they all focus on personalities as sparkling as Dr. Ruth Westheimer. We are referring, of course, to the giggling grandmother of sex advice, famed for dispensing remarkably graphic (and sane) opinions over the airwaves in an accent that represents more countries than the United Nations Security Council. (I remember hearing one of her very early broadcasts, convinced that it had to be a spoof; she sounded like Sigmunda Freud. However, I instantly became a loyal listener.) Since 1980, she has parlayed her celebrity into a rock-solid brand on radio, television, and video, in dozens of books and even a board game. Amazingly, however, this is arguably the least interesting and event-filled portion of her astonishingly turbulent life.

As Becoming Dr. Ruth details, she was born Karola Ruth Siegel in 1929 to an Orthodox Jewish family in Frankfurt; she was separated from her parents at the age of ten when she was sent, via the Kindertransport, to Switzerland. Her escape from the Nazis led her into a kind of indentured servitude. ("They thought we were there to be the servants of their Swiss children. Do their laundry, serve their food, clean their toilets.") In one of the play's more wrenching scenes, the woman in charge tells Ruth and her fellow child refugees, "You were given away. Do you think if your parents truly loved you they would have done that?"

Of course, she never saw her family again. By this point, little Ruth was already skilled at burying her hurts underneath a big smile. (Her role model in all things was Shirley Temple.) Her unstoppable energy proved useful when, after World War II ended, she found herself in Palestine; after a brief kibbutz stay, where once again she was treated as a beast of burden, she joined the Haganah, the Jewish underground army, where her talents as a sharpshooter were highly prized. (Producing a target from a game booth at a country fair, she says, with pardonable pride, that her grandson "was so surprised when I shot five bullets right into this bull's eye.") Her sniper career was short-lived, however; nearly killed in an explosion, she married a medical student and moved to Paris. At this point, she was not quite 25.

There is plenty more, including three marriages, motherhood, a go-for-broke trip to America, career struggles -- she failed three attempts at getting a Ph.D. from The New School, largely, she says, for reasons of political incorrectness -- and, of course, her three-decade-plus run as Dr. Ruth. (She knew she'd hit the big time when, giving money to a blind man on the street, he instantly recognized her voice.) Now she was hobnobbing with the likes of Bill Clinton and David Letterman, not to mention Paul McCartney (although, as she candidly admits, she never could tell one Beatle from another). It's a remarkable, picaresque tale of a woman who never fell because she never stopped to notice that, all too often, she was walking on air.

This sort of solo bio play often seems weirdly artificial; why, one wonders, are we watching someone talk to the wall? Mark St. Germain, the author of Becoming Dr. Ruth, brazenly does away with any pretense at naturalism. The curtain comes up on Ruth's East Side apartment. She is on the phone, but, looking out at the audience she says, "I have company." And that is that; we are in her living room and the Westside Theatre simultaneously, spellbound by the lady and her story.

St. Germain has correctly gambled that Westheimer's tale is sufficiently fascinating that it merely needs to be told in straightforward fashion. Interestingly, the least successful passages in Becoming Dr. Ruth have to do with her early radio days, reducing her to a purveyor of caustic one-liners when in fact the secret of her success was her warm engagement with her audience. There is also a faint attempt at conflict; her beloved third husband, Fred Westheimer, has died and she is moving out of their apartment, against the advice of her children. But this is quickly dealt with, leaving her free to get back to the real order of business, which is beguiling us with scenes from her life.

The producers of Becoming Dr. Ruth are lucky to have the services of Debra Jo Rupp. Her performance isn't really an impersonation -- she doesn't really capture that almost impenetrable collection of sounds that Ruth calls her "German-Israeli-French-American accent," but she proves an invaluable narrator, adding many welcome shades of complexity and knowing exactly when to go for a laugh and when a pause held ever so slightly longer than expected can add emotional heft to a speech. Like Dr. Ruth, she's a charmer, and it only takes a few minutes before she has the audience eating out of her hand.

The rest of Julianne Boyd's confident, easygoing production is equally professional. Brian Prather's nicely detailed apartment setting comes with a big picture window, which allows Daniel Brodie, the projection designer, to deliver a parade of images that includes Westheimer's family, Adolph Hitler, the Swiss countryside, a clip from a Shirley Temple picture, and much, much more. Jessica Paz's sound design ranges from jazzy preshow music to Jewish songs, voiceovers, and ambient effects such as train whistles and a deeply upsetting explosion. Jennifer Moeller's costume and Scott Pinkney's lighting are both solid contributions.

In one of the more amusing passages, Ruth admits to having learned English by reading confession magazines. (Dipping into a story titled "They Said I Was Man Hungry," she reads, in that sacher-torte voice, "Now I'll take care of you, you dirty man snatcher!") Maybe that's one reason why Becoming Dr. Ruth seduces one so easily; in her plainspoken manner, she lets it all hang out, showing us how a happy life can be forged out of the darkest tragedy. That smile, so firmly pasted on her face, was finally earned.--David Barbour