In the spring of 1985, Bette Davis had dinner at the home of the writer Elizabeth Fuller in Westport, Conn. New York City was in the grip of a hotel strike, so when Davis phoned the following day to thank her hostess and also to ask if she could spend "a night or two," Ms. Fuller's antennae might have gone up. They didn't.
Davis moved in -- bag, baggage and steamer trunk -- and didn't move out for a month.
"Me and Jezebel," the two-character play that opened last night off Broadway at the Actors Playhouse, is Ms. Fuller's account of those 30-odd days. It has its surrealistic moments -- how could it not? -- and Davis is allowed to get off some zingers between furious drags on an omnipresent cigarette. In the end, though, this gossipy evening is just a string of anecdotes that goes on too long and amounts to too little.
Besides adapting the script from her book of the same name, Ms. Fuller has chosen to play herself in the production. First fatal mistake. She is untrained as an actress, and while her guileless attitude and physical gaucherie are probably enchanting in her own living room, they do not translate well to the stage.
That puts all the burden on the impressionist Louise DuArt as a "not quite crumbling but almost" Davis. Ms. DuArt's mouth looks like an angry rubber band, her eyelids are painted robin's-egg blue and she moves like a rusty windup toy soldier marching off to battle. She's in a constant state of complaint: railing against Joan Crawford, people who misquote her famous movie lines, the mattress in the guest room and undercooked chicken "so raw it almost pecked me to death." Ms. DuArt gets all the comic mileage she can out of cracks that in another person's mouth would be thought boorish.
But Ms. Fuller's husband, an off-stage character, puts his finger on the evening's second fatal flaw when he pegs Davis as "an adrenaline junkie" who thrives on conflict. If there's another side to the "living legend," we don't see it. The imperious personality is set in stone. The character really goes nowhere.
That's not completely true. At one point, Davis goes to McDonald's with Ms. Fuller and her 4-year-old son, Christopher, another unseen character. Ever magnanimous, the star winds up holding court with the customers. Later, she and the Fullers spend an afternoon at the beach. Christopher wanders off. Ms. Fuller panics. Then a voice comes over the lifeguard's bullhorn: "I've got a boy named Christopher who wants Mommy and Bette Davis. "
There's enough material here for Ms. Fuller to dine out on for weeks. But there really isn't enough to make a play. The tidy cottage set by Gordon Link and the direction by Mark S. Graham cannot mask the shortcoming. Although Ms. Fuller was immoderately impressed by her guest, the only reason Davis seems to have stayed so long is that the price was right.
ME AND JEZEBEL By Elizabeth Fuller; directed by Mark S. Graham; sets and lighting by Gordon Link; general management, Ralph Roseman. Presented by Elliot Martin and Ron Shapiro, in association with Robert R. Blume. At the Actors' Playhouse, 100 Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Village.
WITH: Ms. Fuller (Herself) and Louise DuArt ( Bette Davis) .
