Sketchy Plays About Noted Artists Fail to Evoke Drama

The occasional self-portrait aside, art about artists can be dangerous territory, dramatically speaking. Just because someone made great art, it doesn’t follow that the artist makes a great subject.

But if actors--and writers--are going to continue to fill the Valley’s small theaters with solo shows, as they seem determined to, they are going to continue to probe the lives of the famous for material. So we have two such one-woman shows playing in the Valley: “Resentfully Yours,” based on the writing of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and “Louise Nevelson,” a biographical piece about the 20th century artist and sculptor.

“Resentfully Yours,” at the Two Roads Theatre, traces Millay’s career from 1912, when at age 18 she published her first poem. That poem, “Renascence,” opens the show, starring Stel Fine.

Fine is credited as the writer, but makes no pretense as to what the show is: “a dramatization of the poems and letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay,” as it says on the program cover. Indeed, the words are mostly Millay’s own--her poems, letters, essays.

Fine seems to have a remarkable personal connection to Millay’s poetry; her recitations are passionate, witty and earnest. Her charisma keeps the audience engaged, stanza after stanza. It’s just that, well, while the poetry is all wonderful, it doesn’t fulfill all of our expectations of what a play should be.

“Resentfully Yours,” is, in fact, a two-act, full-length play covering nearly 40 years of Millay’s working life. Yet the bulk of it is spent reading or reciting. Between poems, the script should give enough detail and context that the poems become even more meaningful than when they are read in an anthology. And in some cases, it does work that way.

But in too many instances, there is no sense of time--is she still 19 now? Or 30?--or of the people who inspired her poems. By the second act, Fine has mostly settled into easy transitions that get her from one piece of writing to the next.

There is potential for real drama toward the end, when Millay’s political activism puts her reputation as one of America’s best-loved poets at risk. The scene that follows of Millay in a sanitarium is particularly striking. But in the end, it’s Millay’s words that do most of the work, and that are most worth our attention.

Words, apparently, were not the strong suit of Louise Nevelson. And in the 50-minute piece about her life at the Actors Forum Theatre, writer Bud Freeman hasn’t helped her cause. Though actress Lyla Graham tries to keep the energy high, the story of this 20th century artist drones on much as it would if a relative were recounting a life story with no conflict and little humor.

Freeman’s script starts out with Nevelson in Russia as a little girl, implying somehow that her father’s departure for America shaped her future artistic vision. How he gets that from her painted wood-block assemblages is beyond reason. Whenever the story seems to be wandering off, which is often, Graham exalts, “But oh! The visuals!” Simply pointing out that the artist saw things throughout her life is somehow supposed to substitute as a theme.

The play seems to reach the height of absurdity when, a half an hour into the show, Graham breaks into song. (The excuse, apparently, is that she is taking singing lessons.) The song, “No One Knows Me,” by Freeman and Leon Pober, might be passable as a supporting number in a musical, but it’s quality is impossible gauge from this a cappella version. Notably, Graham lists “Macbeth” and “Hecuba” under her previous credits, but no musicals.

But the audience isn’t out of the woods yet. Suddenly, trying to explain her artistic vision, Graham launches into a bizarre form of interpretive dance. To some irritating tinkly music, she shuffles and sways, swings her arms about, all the while mumble-chanting something about the colors and, of course, the visuals.

Graham’s presentation is too much upbeat eccentric aunt, not enough serious artist. It’s hard to believe that Nevelson had such passion that she burned all her work after a gallery show that resulted in no sales.

The uncredited set--simply four easels holding prints of Nevelson’s work, plus a stool and a table with props--is decidedly unartistic. Director Audrey Marlyn Singer couldn’t save this play from itself. One wonders why, as artistic director of the Actors Forum, that she let it go on at all.

BE THERE

“Resentfully Yours,” at Two Roads Theatre, 4348 Tujunga Ave., Studio City. Friday at 8 p.m. (Call theater for future performance schedule.) $12.50. (818) 766-9381.

“Louise Nevelson,” Actors Forum Theatre, 10655 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Sundays at 2:30 p.m. though Oct. 12. $10. (818) 506-0600.