THEATER REVIEW: MLLE. GOD

Luluser

By Ed Rampell

Mlle. God opens with an aging painter named Melville wooing sexually liberated Lulu, an uninhibited, bisexual young American inspired by German playwright Franz Wedekind’s “Lulu” plays and G.W. Pabst’s 1929 silent movie, Pandora’s Box, starring Louise Brooks. On face value the grand obsession of Nick Kazan’s play Mlle. God is sex, but as in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, deep beneath the surface the Great White Whale this drama pursues may be the dubious role the playwright’s father, Elia Kazan, the Tony and Oscar-winning director of plays and films such as A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront.

According to Victor Navasky’s book, Naming Names, Elia was “the ultimate [and] epitome of a betrayer.” In his 1988 autobiography Elia called himself “the bone of contention,” considered “notorious, an ‘informer,’ a ‘squealer,’ a ‘rat,’” after testifying in 1952 before the House Un-American Committee Activities (HUAC) that eight ex-colleagues of the fabled Group Theatre had been Communist Party members. Like other cooperative witnesses who named names, Elia was allowed to continue making movies; those refusing to inform were blacklisted.

It’s revealing that Nick Kazan’s play -- which received its world premiere by Ensemble Studio Theatre/L.A. at the Atwater Village Theatre -- depicts an act of self-serving betrayal. Mlle. God’s second act finds Lulu (Annika Marks in a bravura performance) wrongfully imprisoned for allegedly murdering the conventional Charles (William Duffy alternates in the part with Andy Lauer). Lulu’s Australian half-brother, Kip (Will Harris), visits her in the prison library, which guards videotape. Kip -- who, according to Harris, “looks out for number one” -- confesses that when police interrogated him he not only implicated Lulu in Charles’ death, but also lied about having incestuous relations with his half-sister.

“He went along with it in order to placate the authorities and make sure he stays in the country,” explained the writer, whose stage and screen credits include Blood Moon, 1982’s Frances, 1988’s Patty Hearst and 1990’s Reversal of Fortune, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Nick also described Lulu’s reaction to Kip’s treason: “She’s stunned and horrified that he went along with it, but she’s also -- it’s hard to blame someone for being himself. If you have a friend who’s a drunk, it’s hard to bear a grudge against them for drunken behavior… It’s not surprising to her…that Kip would do whatever he needed to do to stay in the country. Also she forgives him and once he says, ‘Don’t be gruesome; of course, we didn’t have sex,’ she blows him a kiss.”

The actor Marks said, “of all the moments in the play, that’s when you get to see into Lulu’s soul the most. She’s disappointed and feels betrayed, and has all of those natural human instincts…She tries to find a way to still love him… [It’s] actually one of my very favorite moments…when I feel absolutely in Lulu’s skin.”

According to film historian Dave Wagner, co-author of four books on HUAC’s witchhunts of La-La-Land’s leftists, including Radical Hollywood: “One of the great themes after the Blacklist is of the informer and falsely accused victim, that come up over and over again. Informing for a price is the biggest theme.” Arguably this trend’s prime example was the 1954 film, On the Waterfront, which won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, and for director Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg -- both ex-Communists and informers to HUAC.

After Elia Kazan’s testimony he published a self-justifying ad in The New York Times and “emerged in the folklore of the left as the quintessential informer,” according to Navasky’s Naming Names. Kazan and Schulberg further sought to justify their collaborating with HUAC in On the Waterfront by making its hero (Oscar-winner Marlon Brando) a cooperative witness, informing on corrupt union leader Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb, another real life friendly witness who named names).

Given this context, and the fact that this March 21 marks the 60th anniversary of the second wave of HUAC hearings and of the Hollywood Blacklist, Elia Kazan’s son’s play, with its portrayal of a turncoat informing for personal gain, is a real Lulu that raises progressives’ antennas. When Kip’s betrayal of his jailed halfsister was described to onetime blacklisted screenwriter Norma Barzman, she stated: “It sounds as if he’s dealing with his father’s Blacklist issues – and in a very strange way. It’s hard to believe the person hurt by this, who’s accused of murder and then has someone put the finger on her so she [might] be executed, accepts this. It’s very hard to understand. Nick must be terribly troubled by what his father did and tries never to show it,” said Barzman, author of The Red and the Blacklist.

Based on descriptions, the Arizona-based Wagner, who hasn’t seen Mlle. God, added: “If Nick Kazan is saying people who were falsely accused ought to forgive their accusers, that would be an unusual contribution” to works by artists affected by HUAC’s inquisition. Regarding Kip’s treachery in order to avoid deportation, Wagner pointed out the Blacklist caused many émigrés who didn’t inform, such as composer Hans Eisler playwright Bertolt Brecht, Canadian-born screenwriter Ben Barzman and wife, Norma, to leave America.

When asked if Kip’s opportunistic betrayal of Lulu reflects his father’s activities vis-à-vis HUAC and the Blacklist, the playwright laughed and responded: “It never occurred to me. In fact, I don’t think I was unconsciously dealing with it either. Maybe I was, but it never occurred to me.” Describing his creative process, Nick added: “I’m afraid I don’t always know why I do what I’m doing. I do it by feel…The way I work, things are revealed to me.”

Nick said he doesn’t know the traitorous Kip’s “full name,” although it’s interesting that, like Kazan, the name starts with a “K” (“Gadg” was his father’s nickname). Intriguingly, Robert Trebor (who alternates with Keith Szarabajka in the role of Melville) resembles Elia.

Then when Nick was asked why he named the artist, Melville, Nick replied, “I don’t know…You know, when I’m writing something I just pluck names out of thin air. If the name works, I keep it.”

Perhaps in Mlle. God Nick Kazan has an Ahab-like obsession with the Great White Whale of informing, opportunism, betrayal and blacklisting?


Mlle. God runs through March 6 at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village. For more information: 323/644-1929.