'Tru' replicates original's quality

ST. PETERSBURG -- Poor Truman Capote. The best invitation he had was from Ava Gardner and her raffish crowd for a night of club-hopping that ended with the writer and perennial talk-show guest making a drunken fool of himself.

It's Christmas Eve 1975, and Capote is alone in his magnificent New York penthouse, wearing a silk kimono that suggests the doomed Madame Butterfly. He's fighting a hangover and "the worst case of the mean reds I've maybe ever had in my life."

Tom Frye stars as Capote in Tru, the one-man play by Jay Presson Allen that is being given an expert production under the playwright's direction at American Stage, en route to a possible New York run and national tour. It's the first major revival of the play since Robert Morse's celebrated performance in the 1989 Broadway premiere and subsequent tour.

What makes Tru such a compelling monodrama is that it captures the author of Other Voices, Other Rooms, Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood at a pivotal turning point in his life.

For 20 years, Capote was court jester of the super-rich. His dearest friends were "those beautiful, intelligent, privileged, lonely women" such as Babe Paley and Slim Keith who lunched with him, confided in him and whisked him away to their posh hideaways.

Now that world is slipping from Capote's grasp. Paley, Keith and much of the rest of New York society turned on him after Esquire published a spicy chapter about them from his unfinished Answered Prayers, the Proustian masterpiece that never was.

Capote defends himself as simply upholding the integrity of the artist -- "Everybody knew I was writing this book. What did they think I was there for? The intellectual stimulation?" -- but his hurt at being abandoned is palpable in Frye's sad little smile.

The play's dialogue, mostly drawn from Capote's words and work, overflows with wit. When he takes delivery of a pot of poinsettias, he groans with disdain. "Poinsettias are the Bob Goulet of botany."

Despite its doleful tales of depression and alcoholism, Tru is often hilarious, as when Frye breaks into an inspired imitation of Toulouse-Lautrec at a disco. The celebrity name-dropping is delicious, and Capote's unabashed candor about his homosexuality is still refreshing some 25 years later.

"Most homosexuals are very ordinary people," he says matter-of-factly. "But not me. There is nothing ordinary about me. I was always a sort of two-headed calf."

Tru, in its current incarnation, is not so much a revival as it is a replica. It is a virtual carbon copy of the original production, also directed by Allen, save for some tinkering here and there. For example, instead of puffing on a joint at one point, Capote pours himself another tumbler of booze.

But the only decisive change is the actor, and the differences between Frye and Morse are pretty subtle because the persona of Capote, who died at 59 in 1984, is so vivid that a certain amount of parody is inescapable. There's not a lot of room for reinterpretation in the role, at least not in Allen's view of her play.

As the playwright-director suggested in a talkback after Sunday's matinee, Frye is probably a better pure actor than Morse, but he's not as big a personality. His nasal twang is close to Capote's high-pitched voice. He is heavily made up to emulate the "distinctly curious-looking" author.

Frye is a sweetly wistful Capote, a fey, funny man trapped in the holiday loneliness of his brightly decorated apartment, tap dancing as fast as he can to keep the darkness at bay.

THEATER REVIEW: Tru by Jay Presson Allen runs through Sunday at American Stage. Performances are 7:30 p.m. today and Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets $20-$30. (727) 823-7529.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright