I challenge you to find a single person in any audience of The History of American Film that didn’t laugh out loud at least once, but the performance is more than just a good laugh.
The play, written by Christopher Durang, opened April 11 and runs through April 19th at the University of Memphis.
The plot takes the audience from silent films to recent blockbusters through the story of an orphan, Loretta Moran (Susan Boyle) who meets a gangster named Jimmy (Stephen Lydic), and the calamities and ever-expanding web of characters that entraps them.
The movie parodies countless famous American films, which gives the film the humor that propels. Some situations, such as the take-off from Citizen Kane, wouldn’t be nearly as funny if you hadn’t seen it, and several jokes are so inside that very few would get the reference (such as Bette’s [Natalie Jones’] curtain-chant that is a mock/tribute to Judy Garland).
Directed by Memphis Fine Arts student Melissa Foulger, the challenge of ever-changing characters and their entanglements is somehow realistic and fluent. Boyle masterfully pulls off innocence, and Jones’ breakdown is better than any in a Lifetime Original Movie. All other characters more than adequately support the ensuing chaos of the play. The costumes are fun and plentiful, the jokes madcap and otherwise.
There are musical numbers, but don’t be afraid, they are as fully entertaining and as silly as one would imagine a song titled “We’re in a Salad,” by Mel Marvin, would be.
I was warned that the play was the kind of thing that if you took it seriously, you could be offended. I wasn’t offended, but slightly shamed in the way that you are when you laugh at yourself.
The play travels through the first World War, when patriotism was becoming a pin-up girl to when we conducted the McCarthy witch hunts. It went through the destruction of Marilyn Monroe to the Cold War to the idolization of the silver screen star to the frenzied pace of the blockbuster film.
You see the characters change and wear themselves out and lose their hope just like the film industry, watching the attention span grow shorter, the once-strong grow impotent, and the noise and hope and idealism wash out to one sad voice waiting for the end sign to come down, so it could all be over.
Tickets are free with a student I.D., $15 for adults and $10 for non-U of M students, and all shows start at 8 p.m. Call (901) 678-2576 for information.
It’s a laugh and a good time that leaves a question in the back of your mind: what’s next for American film?
