Judith Ivey in Dirty Tricks

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/18/04 at 6:13pm

I saw this at The Public Friday night. As expected, Ivey is incredible and gives a tour de force performance as the crazy, alcoholic, paranoid, larger-than-life Martha Mitchell. The play uses projections and period music to enhance this tale of the wife of Attorney General and Watergate co-conspirator John Mitchell and how her legendary late night phone calls to the press helped bring down a President.

The play itself, though entertaining by virtue of the colorful character at its center, is a rather run-of-the-mill example of the one-person play genre -- an increasingly popular form for producers in these tight economic times. This apparently is playwright John Jeter's first full-length play and his most notable accomplishment here is having chosen a first rate subject build a play around -- the writing is rather pedestrian and the dramaturgy a bit muddled in the play's first half, especially, but it builds in tension and momentum the further along into the Watergate fiasco it gets. Ivey's performance also grows, the deeper Mitchell gets into the whole mess, and truly pulls out all of the stops in the play's final climacitc scenes.

Because of the disjointed nature of the playwrighting, some knowledge of Watergate and Mitchell's role in the scandal might be beneficial to understanding the play, but not crucial. My memories of it and her are somewhat superficial (I was a child at the time), but I didn't have any trouble following the narrative (except for a scene of her being attacked in a hotel room, which came and went without much explanation, but apparently was an important event).

Overall, "Dirty Tricks" is worth seeing for Ivey's bravura performance. Mitchell is/was one heck of a great character (both the real life one and the fictional one in this play) and Ivey clearly has an affinity for her, due, in part no doubt, to their shared southern background and the fact that they're both pretty tough ladies. It's a great marriage of actress and role and one can imagine Ivey spreading the gospel of Martha around the entire theatre world for many years to come.

PS Apparently Friday was one of the critics previews -- I spotted Brantley, Le Sourd and a few others in the audience.

[zepka102]

Posted: 10/18/04 at 6:20pm

her brother is chair of the theater dept at my college. my freshman year (which was 3 years ago), i took an intro to perf arts class and she was a guest speaker, talking about her career on stage and in movies. she also had a one woman show at the opera house the night before... she was great! and she really seems like a nice person too