A lot has happened to the legend of Truman Capote since Jay Presson Allen’s solo play “Tru” opened on Broadway in 1989 and its star, Robert Morse, went on to win the Tony for best actor. In the first decade of this century, competing movie bios opened – “Capote,” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and “Infamous,” starring Toby Jones – and two years ago, FX aired “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” starring Thomas Hollander.
Now, it is Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s turn to play the troubled author of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood,” who died at age 59 from liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication. The vehicle is a revival of “Tru,” directed by Rob Ashford, which opened Thursday at House of the Redeemer. That Episcopal church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan is an odd venue for such a play, since “Tru” takes place in Capote’s New York City apartment at 870 United Nations Plaza.
That abode was far more modern a setting than the Victorian library at the church where massive oak tables, grand sofas and a lot of fake Tiffany lamps are meant to make the audience feel that they’ve been invited to Capote’s apartment on Christmas 1975, right after Esquire magazine published the “La Côte Basque, 1965” excerpt from his never-completed novel “Answered Prayers.” Allen’s play catches Capote shortly after the writer’s rich female friends – his so-called “swans” – stopped speaking to him.
Ferguson’s Capote drops the names of Babe Paley, Lee Radziwill, Slim Keith and C. Z. Guest, as if we’re supposed to be impressed that he knows such socialites. Nothing he says offers any insight into these former friendships. It’s just name-dropping, as is the mention of Ava Gardner, who throws a party that Capote attends during what used to be the intermission of the original 1989 Broadway production of “Tru.”
Jon Robin Baitz’s “Capote vs. the Swans” teleplay and Dan Futterman’s “Capote” screenplay fictionalized many scenes between Capote and his circle of friends. “Tru” is much more honest, while also being much duller.
Under Ashford’s direction, Charlotte d’Amboise plays a phantom from Capote’s famed Black and White Ball in 1966 at the Plaza Hotel. (Did we know that Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra made an appearance there, fresh off their honeymoon?) This ghost resembles a chorus girl from some touring production of “Follies,” but does keep us occupied while Ava drinks Truman under the table offstage.
When Capote finally does return to his apartment, it’s immediately clear that being drunk hasn’t made him any less small or petty in his incessant kvetching. “Tru” claims that it is “adapted from the words and works of Truman Capote,” but the play lacks any real wit. The biggest laughs come when Jay Presson Allen resorts to the familiar gimmicks of all second-rate Broadway comedies: The play trashes places that are not Manhattan, such as Staten Island and Los Angeles.
Ferguson’s performance seems off right from the beginning. His voice is a tenor’s. Capote’s, of course, was a soprano’s, something that everyone from Robert Morse to Thomas Hollander were able to replicate. The real Capote could disarm with that wisp of a high-pitched whine before he used it as a sling to fell any Goliath.
Spending an afternoon with this Capote is something you wouldn’t wish on his worst enemies — Jacqueline Susann and David Reuben, included. When Capote shakes his bottle of Tuinals, he gives us false hope that he’ll swallow its contents right there and then.
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