"We can't think straight because we always think gay. We don't know anything about a love that lasts or a life that means something," Jack says to Laura three-fourths of the way through Beebo Brinker Chronicles. It's a conundrum that haunts the Hourglass Group's production: How to play the material "straight" without erasing the campy fun built into the lesbian pulp novels from the 1950s on which the play is based. The three novels by Ann Bannon adapted here -- I Am a Woman, Woman in the Shadows, and Journey to a Woman -- were groundbreaking in their day. As Bannon told an audience at a talkback after the final preview, she put Laura "on the train, not under it" at the end of Odd Girl Out. (We see that train scene at the start of Beebo, though the book is not dramatized.) Unfortunately, partly due to variable performances, Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman's play doesn't always strike the right balance in blending nostalgia, knowingness, and emotional truth.
Because of closeted Beth's (Autumn Dornfeld) marriage to Charlie (Bill Dawes), Beth's lover Laura (Marin Ireland) comes to New York alone. Once there, Jack (David Greenspan), a frustrated 42-year-old gay man, clues her in to what she is once he observes her crush on straight roomie Marcie (Carolyn Baeumler). Beebo Brinker is a butch dame who haunts a bar called the Cellar, knows everyone in the Village, and also knows what she wants. Jenn Colella charms in the part, though she's more of a pixie than the dangerous-looking thug we hear about. Greenspan's louche Jack reveals pain as well as wry charm, and Ireland is both luminous and on the edge of hysteria as Laura. Dawes, however, gives an unfortunately flat performance as Charlie, while Dornfeld and Baeumler do uneven work.
Thanks to a smart adaptation, we get doses of the original writing -- some of the scenes are done as story theatre, with characters alternating as narrator. Director Leigh Silverman's staging lets the overheated prose create strong images in the mind that are not always matched by the enacted scenes that follow. Bannon's straight girls and abandoned husband have humanity, and Beebo can be abusive and jealous. But scenes involving Beth's eventual journey to New York fall flat: It's too much material for one play, and while Beth's story needs closure, it's not all that compelling. Still, despite its flaws, Beebo Brinker Chronicles is occasionally terrific and mostly pretty good.
Presented by Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, Harriet Newman Leve, Elyse Singer, Jamie deRoy, Pam Laudenslager and Douglas Denoff
at 37 Arts, 450 W. 37th St., NYC.
March 5-April 27. Tue., 7 p.m.; Wed.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 5 and 9 p.m.; Sun., 3 and 7 p.m.
(212) 317-4100 or www.ticketmaster.com.
Casting by Jack Doulin.