SUFFERING FOOLS
at the International Performance Studio
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Today, much of the glitter is gone. Tabloid articles about drug abuse and alcoholism in Hollywood have dulled its sheen, and the lights of Broadway are dimmer than they’ve been in years. Of course you can still see the old films and fantasize about reclining in a champagne bubble bath after a quick dance with Ginger.
Suffering Fools brings us all the conventions of this well-worn genre. There’s a wisecracking butler, a nosy gossip columnist, a fallen starlet, and a bevy of stylish men and women in evening gowns and tuxedos. The action takes place around midnight in New York’s Plaza Hotel, where Cordelia Wildwood is gulping down martinis awaiting the reviews of her latest show, a guaranteed flop. All heck breaks loose when her ex-husband, successful playwright and author of The Talk of the Town Alex Ratcliffe, pops in to rub Cordelia’s nose in his success.
The writers and director probably spent a good deal of time watching old Cukor and Lubitsch films and reading plays by Philip Barry and Noel Coward. But though Suffering Fools is true to the genre, it offers absolutely nothing new. All the elements in this play have been seen before and have been done better. Perhaps the characters might have seemed charming in a grainy black-and-white movie. But today they bear absolutely no resemblance to any living human. And the play’s situations are hackneyed and obvious. For these writers the reference points were not real life but old plays and films; they’ve created a play that was outdated before it was written.
