Born into a well-heeled Alabama family at the turn of the century, actress Tallulah Bankhead roared into New York in the 1920s and quickly turned heads with her good looks, quick wit and indulgent vices.
Bankhead once quipped that when leaving for New York her father cautioned her to avoid men and booze, “but he never said anything about women and cocaine.”
The Southern belle-gone-bad wowed audiences on stage and screen, perhaps most notably in the premier of Lillian Hellman’s play “The Little Foxes,” but it was her notorious off-stage behavior that cemented her reputation as a Jazz Age exemplar of excess.
Bankhead died in 1968 at the age of 66, but her legend lives on, including in the 2008 play “Looped” by Matthew Lombardo, now running in a production by Jefferson Performing Arts Society at the Westwego Cultural Center.
A film finale
The play is centered on a voiceover session for her final film, the low-budget horror flick “Die! Die! My Darling!” where Bankhead, as the story goes, took eight hours to overdub a single line, stubbornly drinking and smoking her way through the session much to the frustration of the film crew.
The swiftly paced and highly entertaining JPAS production is directed by Janet Shea, a decorated veteran of New Orleans stages, and stars Leslie Castay, who returned to local theaters after more than two decades in New York working on and off Broadway.
“Looped” is largely a vehicle for its lead performer’s best Bankhead impersonation, and Castay delivers a good one, sloshed and staggering with her flapper curls, smokey rasp and withering one-liners.
Castay leans into the meaty role with equal parts camp and vamp, playing up Bankhead’s rough-edged sass and sophistication with a big wink and nod to the audience. (“I’m bisexual,” she drawls teasingly, cocktail in hand. “Buy me something, and I’ll be sexual.”)
Wit and emotion
Leslie Castay and Eric Lincoln in a scene from Matthew Lombardo's 'Looped.'
The play’s first act revels in the script’s quippy frivolous fun, a one-sided war of wit between Bankhead and the exasperated film editor Danny, played by Eric Lincoln, who serves as a fine foil to Castay’s inebriated antics.
The second act cuts deeper, with plot points that reveal both her vulnerabilities and his. The shift in story shows the emotional range of both actors, pushing the production beyond just a campy sendup of Bankhead’s grit and glamor.
Particularly effective is a Tennessee Williams-inspired through line regarding the tumultuous relationship between Tallulah and Tennessee.
The character Blanche Dubios, from Williams’ “Streetcar,” was purportedly inspired by Bankhead (“an aging promiscuous Southern woman who drinks too much”), though she blew her big chance for a star turn in Williams’ best known work.
Delicate and detailed
The play is rounded out by David L. Haydel Jr. as a bemused sound engineer, and the production benefits from a solid scenic design (Benjamin Dougherty) and effective light and sound (Jules Granger, Eric Porter).
At its core, “Looped” is a well-crafted play that’s big on personality, but handles the smaller, quiet moments just as well.
Given Bankhead’s larger-than-life persona, the play is surprisingly intimate, a testament to the cast and crew’s delicate touch and attention to detail in their tribute to an American original.
Brad Rhines writes about theater. Email him at bradfordrhines@gmail.com.
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'LOOPED'
WHEN: through Nov. 19
WHERE: Westwego Cultural Center, 177 Sala Ave., Westwego
TICKETS: $35 (senior, student, and military discounts available)
INFO: jpas.org