'Millionairess': Overall, It's a Priceless Romp
By Nelson Pressley
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, June 29, 2009
Money has character in George Bernard Shaw's comedy "The Millionairess," and in the dazzling figure of Epifania Ognisanti di Parerga, it is seductive, efficient and utterly insufferable.
"Can one live with a tornado?" cries Alastair, the champion boxer who gets bested at every turn by his ultra-rich wife, Eppy.
Shaw's millionairess, played with verve that's simultaneously appealing and daunting by Julie-Ann Elliott in this Olney Theatre Center production, is power incarnate. Eppy is restless, demanding and so ruthlessly capable that she takes over everything from conversations to struggling businesses she doesn't even really want to own. She just can, better than anyone else, and so she does, creating jobs and maybe wrecking a few lives because, well, that simply seems to be the way things go.
Shaw's play was written in 1935 with fascism on the rise and capitalism riddled with too many flaws for Shaw's Fabian taste, and the plot strikes more than a few resonant chords with our own times of massive bailouts and cheeky bonuses for the Masters of the Universe. Yet the Olney production whizzes along like an agreeably talky romantic comedy, a period piece with verbal panache.
Be warned, though: The first act (of four) seems like the worst kind of old-fashioned theater. As Alastair and Eppy trade barbs in front of a lawyer -- and in front of their respective paramours, Patricia and Adrian -- John Going's entire cast declaims superciliously, with volume and pace but without human feeling. The scene could hardly be more inept (though at least the elevator that delivers characters up through the floor to the lawyer's office is nifty).
After Eppy runs off with Adrian, however, the cast settles in and the characters begin to connect, usually with zingy lines but sometimes with roundhouse punches. (The relationship with Adrian doesn't exactly work out, and the breakup is hilariously swift.) Eppy's fancy shifts to a suave Muslim doctor who seems immune to her charms; to win him, can she take a pittance and spin it into a healthy sum in just six months?
It's the kind of hurdle Alastair has to clear to win Eppy, too, and Shaw makes all kinds of mischief with the necessities and evils of moneymaking, cloaking it in the prickly terms of romance. This goes down easily as Elliott spars with Michael McKenzie's fastidious Adrian and Paul Morella's strategically tranquil doctor, and reaches a particular peak when Eppy perkily invades a sweatshop. Cherie Weinert does brief but notably evocative work as the haggard wife in the mom-and-pop operation; the fatigued mistrust and trampled humanity Weinert brings to the scene significantly raise the stakes.
After that oddly hapless first act, the cast turns out to be awfully likable. As Alastair, James Denvil creates a subtly daffy portrait of a palooka with a flair for kiting checks, and Tonya Beckman Ross has similar simple charm as Patricia.
The comedy is a tour de force for Eppy, though, and Elliott strides through the massive role with magnetic energy and carefully measured flickers of warmth. She is iron fist and velvet glove, giving this pleasant show a supple punch.
The Millionairess, by George Bernard Shaw. Directed by John Going. Scenic design, James Wolk; costumes, Liz Covey; lighting, Dennis Parichy; sound design, Christopher Baine. With Nick DePinto, John Dow and David Frankenberger Jr. About 2 hours 20 minutes.
