Diamond Head Theatre, Honolulu, Hawaii (11-27 February 2005)

Co-Director (with William Ogilvie {xref Hawaii Five-O and Dirty Laundry})

A play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.

For over six years, Oscar Jaffe and Lily Garland were an unbeatable team -- he the brilliant and creative producer; she the beautiful star he'd trained up from obscurity to become his leading lady. But their tempestuous affair has been over for a year now and, while Lily has continued to climb the ladder of success, Oscar has fallen nearly all the way to the bottom rung. Fleeing Chicago and his creditors after his latest debacle, Oscar learns that Lily will be on the same train to New York and hatches a scheme to win her back to shore up his failing empire.

With the help of his press agent, Owen O'Malley, and his business manager, Oliver Webb, Oscar puts his plans into motion. First, Webb and O'Malley bully their way into the all-important Drawing Room A by evicting its rightful occupants, an adulterous couple (Grover Lockwood and Anita Highland) out for an illicit weekend. Next, Oscar must separate Lily from her current agent/boy toy, George Smith. Using all his wiles, and with a little help from Lily's maid Sadie, Oscar manages to drive a wedge between George and Lily.

In the meantime, Webb has befriended another passenger on the train, Matthew Clark, a religious fanatic who tells Webb he's president of the Laxo Paxo Fruit Company. Oscar's been busy too, first turning away the obnoxious Dr. Johnson and her bizarre script for a new version of Joan of Arc, then realizing that the two obsequious bearded Germans who have been looking for him all over the train are the lead performers of the famed Oberammergau Players and may very well hold the solution to all his troubles. Their traveling Passion Play has been performed for over 400 years and is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest works ever staged. In exchange for enough money to get a decent meal, the Beards agree to hand over their script to Oscar, whose fertile mind has already cast Lily as the Magdelen. Now all he needs is a backer.

Along comes Webb and his new friend Clark, whom Webb has convinced to finance the play. After a meeting between all the parties, Lily agrees to sign an exclusive contract with Oscar, thus cutting his arch nemesis, Max Jacobs, out of the picture for good.

All is looking rosy for Oscar until, just as Lily is preparing to sign the contract, the occupants of the train learn that the maniac who has been plastering the train with religious stickers is none other than Matthew Clark. It turns out that Clark is really an escapee from an asylum, and the $200,000 check he gave Oscar as a down payment isn't worth the paper on which its written.

As Lily and Oscar reel from their mutual discoveries and disappointments, Max Jacobs appears, proudly bearing a new Somerset Maugham script for Lily and dashing all of Oscar's hopes and carefully crafted schemes.

As Oscar bids a tearful goodbye to his subordinates, who've seen him cry wolf one time too many and quickly dismiss this latest threat as nothing more than another example of his overblown histrionics, Matthew creeps out of Oscar's closet, seizing the gun with which Oscar is contemplating suicide. In the ensuing struggle, Oscar is wounded.

Although Dr. Johnson soon assures Oscar, Webb, and O'Malley that the wound is a mere scratch, Oscar hatches one final plot. He convinces the other three to support him as he plays out a melodramatic death scene for Lily's benefit, which finally succeeds in getting her to sign the all-important contract. Max Jacobs breaks into the compartment, only to learn that he's too late and Oscar has won the day.

As the passengers disembark in New York, we learn that Oscar and Max have worked out a deal to star Lily (and the German beards) in the new Somerset Maugham play. Lily is once again under the Jaffe banner (and presumably the two are once again a couple). As with all good romantic comedies, everyone gets something, and nobody walks away unhappy.

Cast

Conductor Fred Jenkins: John Hunt {xref: Hawaii Five-O}
Pullman Porter: Deneb K. Catalan
Grover Lockwood: Gordon Ing
Anita Highland: Laurie Tanoura
Train Secretary Mr. Wiley: James Stanton
Car Porter: Karl K. Leftwich
Owen O'Malley: David C. Farmer
Oliver Webb: Tom Holowach
Brakeman Flannagan: Allen Cole
Dr. Johnson: Barbara Kaneshiro
Matthew Clark: Earll Kingston {xref: Hawaii Five-O}
First Beard: Jim Hesse {xref: Hawaii Five-O}
Second Beard: Ricky P. Galius
Oscar Jaffe: Dennis Proulx
Sadie: Mary Hart
Lily Garland: Brenda Lee Hillebrenner
George Smith: Gene DeFrancis
First Detective: James Stanton
Second Detective: Deneb K. Catalan
Max Jacobs: Richard Aadland
Reporter: Karl K. Leftwich
The Boy: Ian Vahovich {xref: Dirty Laundry}

Read related articles:

"Stepping Back Into the 'Twentieth Century' Scene" by Wayne Harada, Honolulu Advertiser (11 February 2005)

"Book 'Em" by Becky Maltby, Honolulu Weekly (9 February 2005)

Click the admission ticket above right for a short KHON news clip featuring James MacArthur and Dennis Proulx discussing the play.