The Key to It All

Last night I went to a world premiere play at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood Village.  It's a stage production of Key Largo, the classic film noir with Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Lauren Bacall (and which won an Oscar for Claire Trevor as Best Supporting Actress).  The movie is actually based on a play by Robert Sherwood, but this isn't that, precisely.  It's an adaptation of both the play and the movie.  This new version was co-written by Jeffrey Hatcher and Andy Garcia (who also stars in the Edward G. Robinson gangster role).  It''s directed by Tony-winner Doug Hughes, who won as Best Director for Doubt. 
 
(I'd thought the play had opened, but It turns out that they haven't officially had their world premiere yet, that’s tomorrow, on Thursday.)

The show was enjoyable, and I’m very glad I went.  Not great or riveting – I thought the final action sequence needed more focus – and it meanders a bit, not as taut as it probably should be for my taste, but it’s nicely done. Andy Garcia does the very good job you would expect from him.  But it’s hard not to get Edward G. Robinson out of your mind, and good as Garcia is, he’s not that.  Others in the cast I recognized are Tony Plana (in the Lionel Barrymore role – he’s blind here, not in a wheelchair, probably because it’s easier to get around on a more confined stage set) and he was extremely good.  Less crusty than Barrymore but more in-your-face feisty.  Also Joely Fisher in the Claire Trevor supporting role of the gangster's boozy girlfriend.  She’s more light and comic, but sad underneath for most of the play but then has one raw, angst-ridden scene late in the play where she’s absolutely riveting and wonderful.
 
I didn’t know the actor playing the Bogart role – Danny Pino.  He gave a solid performance, professional, but a little bland for my taste, although in fairness it probably fit who the character was, which is different from the movie.  He’s much less weather-beaten and world-weary, but more lost inside, holding in anger, a soldier just returned from World War II.  Bogart wouldn’t fit this stage character at all, though still it’s impossible to not miss Bogart.  The young actress who played the Bacall role was very good.  I didn't know her work before, Rose McIver, but she’s done quite a bit of TV – a regular in the series iZombie, and a recurring character in Masters of Sex and Once Upon a Time, and was one of the sisters in The Lovely Bones directed by Peter Jackson (which I did see, but don't remember her from it)
 
The show was well-done and moves along fine (which is smart, since the story is very confined -- people stranded in a hotel during a hurricane), only an hour and 45 minutes including intermission.  It has some texture, the hurricane sequence is good, but misses the dripping texture of the movie and while it’s unfair to compete with the shadow of Bogart and Barrymore, it's just very hard to ignore the shadows that are there.  If one hasn't seen the film, though, that's another matter.

I wish that I could find some dialogue scenes promoting the play, but alas you'll have to make do with this brief non-dialogue trailer.