Revisiting the Arbuckle Scandal in ‘Last Laugh’

Just who gets “The Last Laugh” at the Jewel Box Theatre is a debatable point. There aren’t many chuckles to go around in this speculative drama about the 1921 scandal that wrecked the career of one of America’s most popular comedians, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.

Willard Manus’ play raises unsettling questions about the role of politics in Arbuckle’s prosecution for an alleged sexual assault that led to the death of a showgirl during a wild party in his San Francisco hotel suite. The piece positions the hapless Arbuckle (the unfortunately monikered Darren T. Mangler) as a helpless pawn caught between an ambitious district attorney (Michael Walsh) using fears of Hollywood corruption and a Zionist cabal to fuel a gubernatorial campaign, and Jewish film moguls such as Adolph Zukor (Jeffrey Taylor) bent on fending off anti-Semitic assaults and keeping their studios operating.

Neither Jewish nor politically active, Mangler’s sympathetic Arbuckle clings to faith in his ultimate vindication, and pays dearly for his naivete. Unfortunately, the largely miscast supporting ensemble falls short of the play’s ambitions--the particularly limp Walsh and Taylor flaunt their power like dueling marshmallows.

Moreover, their larger political intrigues occupy a relatively small portion of the story, which focuses on stiff reenactments of Arbuckle’s multiple trials and redundant flashbacks of the testimony in John Lant’s awkward staging.

The show’s bright spot is Kaycee Shank, who brings haunting conviction to the doomed Virginia Rappe. But Manus’ sanitized portrait of Arbuckle strains credulity, asking us to believe that the comic, already separated from his wife for his womanizing, was purely paternal in his relations with the injured girl, or that he would turn away the advances of a predatory flapper (Shelly Thoreson) with a shocked “I’m a married man!”

“The Last Laugh” leaves no doubt that Arbuckle got a bum rap in the courts and in the press--but whatever went on in that hotel room, we’re no closer to knowing it than we were before.

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* “The Last Laugh,” Jewel Box Theatre, 1951 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 3. $10. (323) 469-4343. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.