Valerie Harper portrays a ‘Looped’ Tallulah Bankhead

New Broadway bio-play depicts a tempestuous legend

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

Fabled star and tosspot Tallulah Bankhead went to her reward more than four decades ago and several actresses (and a million drag queens) since have tried to create her tempestuous personality on stage, notably Kathleen Turner, Helen Gallagher and Tovah Feldshuh.

Valerie Harper now portrays the formidable Bankhead in "Looped," which opened Sunday at the Lyceum Theatre. She's pretty good, but Matthew Lombardo's three-character play is some rather stale popcorn.

Set in a sound studio in Los Angeles in 1965, Lombardo's story depicts an ageing but gallant Bankhead re-recording a bit of dialogue for the horror movie mash-up "Die! Die! My Darling."

Half-crocked but ever imperious, gabbling away about her loose life and scandalous times ("Buy me something and I'll be bisexual, dahhling"), Bankhead keeps blowing her dialogue. During the two-act play's process of retakes, the garrulous, constantly distracted Bankhead drives her nice film editor Danny (Brian Hutchison) nuts - or at any rate, nuts enough to confess his own sad troubles to her.

What? I thought this show was all about Tallulah Bankhead, not some fictional drip of a character.

That odd detour aside, "Looped" provides a fond, familiar impression of Bankhead in her twilight years that leaves unexplored huge stretches of her colorful biography. Lombardo did far better by Katharine Hepburn with his "Tea at Five" bio-play.

While she may be remembered best as Rhoda Morgenstern from sitcom land, Harper has solid stage credits and the chops to prove it. Prowling around in a blue satin frock, Harper looks surprisingly like Bankhead and confidently assumes her drawling, husky tones and raucous laugh.

Bankhead certainly was a headliner in her 1920s-1960s heyday, but considering how long she's been gone from the mainstream (the poor dear can't help being dead) and how little of her acting exists on film (aside from campy TV turns on "The Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour" and "Batman"), it's questionable whether much of an audience remains intrigued by the lady's memory today to pay Broadway prices for this harmless but scarcely riveting séance with a legend.

"Looped" continues an open-end run at the Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St., New York. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.loopedonbroadway.com.