The mission of the American Century Theater, or TACT, is to find and refresh American plays. In its first offering of the new year, it has done an excellent job of reviving George Kelly’s “The Show-Off,” first performed on Broadway in 1924.
TACT’s “The Show-Off” not only dusts off a theatrical relic, it also demonstrates what a brilliant dramatist and comic writer Kelly was, and it sheds light on a period of theater dealing with the era before the Great Depression.
Without moralizing, “The Show-Off” is an analysis of honesty and an individual’s truthfulness. It’s the story of Aubrey Piper (David Gram), a thoroughgoing liar and self-promoter. Although he’s paid just $32.50 a week as a clerk at the Pennsylvania Railroad, he passes himself off as the president of the company. He tells strangers that he owns the house that his mother-in-law, Mrs. Fisher (Lee Mikeska Gardner), lives in.
Although Aubrey is 90 percent facade and deception, Kelly doesn’t intend him to be a hateful creature, and Gram doesn’t portray him as a caricature of falsity. His Aubrey is buoyant, loving to his wife and extremely credible, not a cartoon.
| Onstage |
| ‘The Show-Off’ |
| Where: American Century Theater, Gunston Theatre II, 2700 South Lang St., Arlington |
| When: Through Feb. 2 |
| Info: $32 to $40; 703-998-4555; americancentury.org |
Kelly included plenty of solid analysis of why people behave as they do in “The Show-Off.” One of Mrs. Fisher’s daughters, Clara (Jenna Berk) is married to a well-to-do man, but their marriage is empty and passionless. Berk gives a sensitive performance as the perceptive Clara who knows that her marriage will never be fulfilling.
The other daughter, Amy (Erin McGuff), is head-over-heels in love with Aubrey, even when she realizes he is penniless. McGuff plays Amy as faithful, simple and able to see something in Aubrey the others can’t see.
The central role in the play is that of Mrs. Fisher, who can’t stand Aubrey and doesn’t care who knows it. She is continually Aubrey’s outspoken antagonist. Gardner gives an entertaining performance as the angry, frustrated woman who is driven to distraction by a son-in-law who wears a toupee.
There is a problem of pacing in this “Show-Off.” Acts 1 and 2 seem to drag, because Stephen Jarrett directs unevenly, sometimes letting Aubrey’s manic personality run the action, sometimes letting long pauses fill the stage. “The Show-Off” doesn’t sing until the third act.
“The Show-off” is a beautifully constructed play. It’s also a moving, knowledgeable vision of the way in which flawed, ordinary individuals often try to do the noble thing. TACT demonstrates both sides of “The Show-Off.”
