TRU
Truman Capote just hated California; to die in Los Angeles, he thought, was redundant. Of course, when he did die there–in 1984, one month shy of 60–plenty of people thought his physical passing itself was redundant. Artistically and emotionally he was apparently exhausted, and his descent into drug and alcohol abuse and dangerously reckless behavior seemed to signal a barely unconscious suicidal drive. A once-brilliant artist and tireless mover and shaker had turned into something like a walking corpse.
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Aside from his diminutive height, Morse doesn’t look much like Capote–until he dons the extraordinary prosthetic makeup, by Kevin Haney, and tops it off with the thinning gray-haired wig, credited to Paul Huntley. But as he reminds us at the end of the evening, when he pulls off his disguise for a final bow, Morse’s familiar mischievous “I believe in you” persona makes him just right for the part of Capote. On top of that shared trait Morse marshals, under the playwright’s direction, superb physical technique, engaging warmth, and sharply focused concentration to create a thoroughly convincing portrait of an artist at a crucial turning point, heading from the height of his power and importance into a spiraling decline.
Cut off by his former friends–and even temporarily deserted by Jack Dunphy, his longtime companion–Tru takes some solace in dropping the names of notables he’s known. This truly eclectic collection includes Andy Warhol (“He always wanted someone to call him ‘Daddy’”), Louis Armstrong, Norman Mailer, Tennessee Williams, Adlai Stevenson (there were rumors they were lovers), John and Robert Kennedy and their killers, Marilyn Monroe, and Ava Gardner (with whom he is about to go discoing at Studio 54–talk about things past!). He recalls important and troubling childhood experiences–his parents’ divorce, his mother’s alcoholism, a visit to a fortune-teller who laughed at him when he expressed a secret wish to be a girl, military school (where he turned more homosexual instead of less), and the time he got in trouble as a child in Alabama after an unflattering story he wrote about a neighbor, “Mrs. Busybody,” was published in the local newspaper. (Some people never learn.)
The problem is, none of this is very funny. Frank Melcori, the author and star of this impersonation, is quite effective in the role of Nixon: though obviously too young and healthy for the character, he has Nixon’s hard-edged voice, jerky gestures, and goofily nervous smile down pat. And he keeps in character well even when subjected to digging jokes from real-life friends in the audience, as he was at the press opening. (When will theaters learn not to stack opening night with cliques? It does much more harm than good.)
