Living life ‘Looped’ at Arena Stage

Rhoda Morgenstern is gone.

Yes, Valerie Harper won four Emmy Awards playing Mary Tyler Moore’s best friend in the television comedies “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Rhoda.” And, yes, Valerie Harper stars in the Arena Stage production of Looped, but she’s left Rhoda far behind.

Like the great actress she has proven herself to be, Harper has transformed herself into the late great actress and bon vivant Tallulah Bankhead. Or, at least, a somewhat fictionalized form of Bankhead, who was as known for her eccentricities and excesses as for her acting.

In the play, Harper brings parts of Bankhead’s true or at least purported world to life. This Bankhead speaks freely — often with witticisms — about her bisexuality (“Buy me something? I’ll be sexual”), alcoholism (“Of course I have a drinking problem. Whenever I’m not drinking? Oh honey, it’s a problem.”) and other life choices.

But the Bankhead in “Looped” also possesses Margo Channing’s devotion to acting that precludes a family life as evidenced in several areas including when she explains she can’t have children (“And don’t you dare start feeling all sorry for me and what not”) with touches of Norma Desmond (“Every time I played the show would be sold out months in advance.”)

The play, which debuted at the Pasadena (Calif.) Playhouse, revolves around a near-the-end-of-her-life Bankhead in all her excesses drinking, staggering, flirting, and speaking profanely as she analyzes her life, her industry and those within it.

The play is set entirely inside a sound studio where film editor Danny Miller — as played by Jay Goede — is charged with ensuring Bankhead repeats a line to be inserted into an otherwise completed film — or “Looped” as is the industry term.

But the star refuses to repeat the line — matching her words to the lip movements on the screen — instead choosing to verbally joust with Miller or send Steve (Michael Karl Orenstein) — who spends the play in the sound booth when he’s not running to fetch liquor for Bankhead or throwing some of the play’s most amusing one-liners down to Miller and Bankhead. Orenstein handles the challenge brilliantly making his character a welcome addition although he’s never fully seen by the audience.

Throughout the verbal match with Miller — during which he grows increasingly hostile almost without major provocation — Bankhead makes it clear that despite her career downturn she refuses to indulge herself, proving her comfort with herself in her words in actions.

That’s in sharp contrast to the angry, frustrated Miller. Perhaps this was Director Rob Ruggiero’s wish to further underscore Miller’s character, but Goede comes across as not completely comfortable in his character’s skin.

That is truly a minor flaw, but it is magnified in the Second Act when Bankhead sets about to unravel the tightly bound Miller and make him take responsibility for his own happiness. Still, despite that sour note, the message of the play comes through clearly.

“Go on, Say it. Dying,” said Harper’s Bankhead. “Yes. I am. But let me tell you something, sweetheart. I would rather spend an eternity of dying than a lifetime of dead. Like you.”