Review: There’s little insight into the literary sparring partners ‘Scott and Hem’

Wikitheatre (wik-i-thee-¿-ter) is a newly-coined term for a subgenre of stage docudrama, characterized by slender fictional narrative and dialogue threading various quotes and biographical info-bits involving celebrated historical figures.

A recent example of the format is the Falcon Theatre production of “Scott and Hem,” Mark St. Germain’s imagined encounter between famous literary frenemies F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

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Critical reception to the performance was mixed, owing to appreciation on the one hand for St. Germain’s intellectual rigor and exhaustive research, offset by disappointment with the politely workmanlike manner in which the play trades on ready-made themes and personalities without venturing any bold new insights of its own.

Impressions were further complicated by the opening-night substitution of understudy Thomas Owen for Kevin Blake in the role of Fitzgerald. Fortunately, the assured line delivery and precise physical blocking were a credit to the care that director Dimitri Toscas and his entire cast have put into the staging.

Scrupulously adhering to the classical unities of a “Dateline” reenactment, the action is set on a fateful Fourth of July in 1937, in Fitzgerald’s suite at the one-time Hollywood glitterati-magnet Garden of Allah Hotel.

As the cash-strapped Fitzgerald struggles with both his alcoholic demons and an imminent deadline to produce a screenplay, his estranged drinking buddy Hemingway (Ty Mayberry) drops by, ostensibly to offer a helping hand. Hidden motives soon surface in this clash of the literary titans, as the play explores their entangled battles with mental illness, repressed sexuality and career disappointments.

Although in real life the two writers were born three years apart, there looked to be a lost generation between the performers. Nevertheless, their dynamic credibly captured the social class differences between Fitzgerald’s patrician finesse and Hemingway’s macho working-class posturing, and their shared destiny of self-destruction.

An intermediary and occasional referee appears in the guise of Eve Montaigne (Jackie Seiden), a presumably invented [citation needed] personal assistant to studio head Louis B. Mayer.

Tasked with monitoring Fitzgerald’s sobriety and assisting with typing and editing his script, she trades innuendo-laden put-downs with Hemingway as she slinks about in a nightclub-ready, curve-clinging dress, as secretaries are wont to do.

The fairly pedestrian quality of the original dialogue (“You hate me as much as you love me”) clashes awkwardly with the hyper-eloquent quotes and references threaded throughout.

Supplemented with background articles from Wikipedia posted in the lobby, the piece is ultimately more significant for its historical insight than for anything that actually happens in it.

“Scott and Hem,” Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Dr., Burbank. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 15. $36.50-$44. (818) 955-8101 or www.falcontheatre.com. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

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