GERTRUDE STEIN AND A COMPANION
So Alexandra Billings–slender, beautiful, and light, the star of such campy delights as Lobo a Go-Go and Cannibal Cheerleaders on Crack–would seem a farfetched choice to cast as the mythic Stein. Yet she has the lead role in Borealis Productions’ Gertrude Stein and a Companion, now playing at Strawdog Theatre.
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Toklas’s image is nearly as serious and indelible as Stein’s: dark, slight, and slightly slouched, Semitic and sloe-eyed. For this part, Borealis has chosen Jamie Pachino, a dishwater blond who oozes confidence and wit.
Using text from Stein’s writings, letters, and interviews, Wells tells the story of the Stein-Toklas marriage, slowly revealing the inner workings of its dynamic. What emerges is a private picture that’s nearly the opposite of the public one: Stein, who sat like a king with Hemingway and Pablo Picasso, was dependent on Toklas for everything, from editing to packing her suitcases. Toklas, who seems so meek in those shadowy photographs from the 1930s and 1940s, deliberately dominated Stein’s sexual and literary imagination.
