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"I love gossip, don't you?" purrs Hollywood über-agent Sue Mengers behind her bubble-eyed glasses while perpetually rearranging the pillows on her living-room couch. "Gossip is like mother's milk to me."
Gossip from 1970s Hollywood is what's being served up by actor Camille G. Van Wagoner as John Logan's one-woman stage show, "I'll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers," opens Salt Lake Acting Company's new season.
But dish served cold is a very tough sell, and Logan's script loves Mengers so much it's hard for the audience to elbow our way in. Set in 1981 on the day client Barbra Streisand has fired her, Mengers spends the afternoon in her trademark caftan remembering back when Hollywood was more fun. She spins stories to any acolytes who will listen while poignantly waiting for Streisand, once a manicure bestie, to call.
As audience members, we're simply too grubby — "just look at you" is how Mengers dismisses us — to be invited to one of the superagent's legendary Hollywood parties, where everything is about seating the right star by the right director in order to help Mengers' clients win their next roles.
Van Wagoner looks the part, thanks to a scrumptious center-parted blond wig and a blood-red manicure and pedicure. The actor relishes the naughty language and the cigarette-lighting stage business of the role, of which there is plenty. I trust she'll find more of Mengers' inner viciousness over the course of the run. But the bigger problem is that Logan's script doesn't offer her enough emotional range to expand over the course of 90 minutes.
I'd like to imagine the bon mots might land well in a company town, especially when tossed off by Bette Midler, who created the role last year on Broadway and took it out for a spin in Los Angeles, but the story simply didn't win me over. The business of Hollywood as it was conducted in 1981 seems too close, and yet too far away, to tell a bigger, more universal story. At the very least, the production hasn't found a way to overcome its source material.
In our social-media-crazed era, at a time when Influencers and YouTube stars can selfie their way to their own kind of fame, the story of the queenmaker to Barbra and Gene and Faye and Ali seems poignant, but for reasons this story simply didn't intend.
facebook.com/ellen.weist —
'I'll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers'
The star power of the Hollywood superagent doesn't shine bright enough to sustain this one-woman show.
When • Reviewed Friday, Sept. 19; continues through Oct. 26; shows at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 1 and 6 p.m. Sunday. Additional performances Oct. 14, 7:30 p.m., and Oct. 25, 2 p.m.
Where • Salt Lake Acting Company, 168 W. 500 North
Tickets • $15-$42; discounts for groups, students, seniors and 30-and-youngers; at 801-363-7522 or saltlakeactingcompany.org
Running time • 90 minutes, no intermission