TV REVIEWS : Olympia Dukakis in a Memorable ‘Last Act’ on A

Certain performances burn images in your memory that stick with you through a lifetime. Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard” has remained the definitive portrait of the aging actress cloistered among her mementos, wishful for one last shot at stardom. Who could ever match up to Norma Desmond? Well, Swanson better make room for a new contender: Olympia Dukakis, cast as the great lady of the American stage, the fictional Laura Cunningham.

Playwright Robert Anderson’s “The Last Act Is a Solo” (at 6 and 10 tonight on A&E; cable) is not a movie. It’s a one-hour, three-character chamber piece, for “Playwrights Theater,” that delivers one of the most shattering, fragile performances by an actress that television can possibly offer an audience.

The production works on three levels--as a story about the stage, about aging and about a once-famous star now withering in a cluttered Manhattan apartment full of Playgoer posters, photographs and memories. Out of the blue she gets one last chance at returning to Broadway.

The achievement begins with the writing by Anderson (“Tea and Sympathy,” “I Never Sang for My Father”) and extends though Dukakis’ burnished performance to supporting roles by Ed Herrmann as her solicitous nephew and Gavin MacLeod as a producer who comes bearing the dubious gift of a role in a new play.

Her ego is momentarily flattered by the idea of a return to Broadway until she learns that she will only have one line and not even that if she doesn’t want it. She can just stand up there on the stage.

“You want my farewell to be a curiosity,” she wisely tells the producer, and right away you’re reminded of the old stars who are packaged for an obscene moment in the light, the terminal celebrities that show business loves to wax and prop up and parade numbly in front of the public.