The Movie Star wants to be a comedy but it’s not funny. It also wants to be moving but it’s not that either.
James Barclay’s new script is about an actor named Cole Gray. He’s been cast as the new James Bond, but he’s a hothead with two DUI convictions in the last three years, he’s posted an inflammatory comment on social media, and his latest escapade, in which he punched a paparazzo, has earned him 500 hours of community service. So Cole’s manager Josh hustles him off to a homeless shelter run by his sister Grace, where Cole meets three eccentric residents and proceeds to work off his hours by helping out.
To his credit, Barclay doesn’t try to turn Cole’s drunken irresponsibility into laughs, but he doesn’t give us much reason to care about him either. Apparently, Cole wants to play Bond so that he can finally win his father’s approval, but Barclay’s development of this idea is too shallow to hit home. After laying out the whole story to Josh, Cole asks, “Are you crying?” Josh is, apparently, but my answer would have been, “Not a chance.”
About the humour. When Cole meets a shelter resident named Seth, Seth says, “You kind of look like Rob Lowe — if Rob Lowe got beaten with an ugly stick.” Commenting to Josh on Cole’s contributions at the shelter, Grace says, “He somehow manages to burn water.”
Before I get to some of the positives about this production, I have one more significant negative to deal with. Barclay himself has taken on the role of Cole, and his performance is flat. This strikes me as very odd because the two previous times I’ve seen Barclay onstage — in The Play That Goes Wrong and Wonderwall — he’s been charismatic. In The Movie Star, however, his Cole shows no evidence of the confidence the script says he possesses; he’s just a lost, vacant boy. This may well be the character’s inner truth, but I can’t imagine that’s how he’d present himself, even after his humiliation.
There’s some strong acting elsewhere. Christi Arellano brings a persuasively grounded — and inviting — naturalism to her performance as Grace. Ashley Kim’s portrait of a resident named Lily is more stylized but no less pleasing. It took me a while to appreciate what Kim is doing but, when the character’s vulnerability and joy started to bleed through her deadpan eccentricity, I was delighted by it. Andrew Kenny (Josh), Tom Kavadias (a resident and failed Broadway playwright named Eli), and Reid Anderson (Seth) also offer solid work.
Because it’s more nuanced, Act 2 is stronger than Act 1. Still, the basic shape of its arc is predictable. And its conclusion is unsatisfying. The Movie Star ends with the resolution of a romantic plotline, but that romance has never been the play’s core story, nor does it precisely embody the script’s central theme. In this narrative, what we really want to see is that Cole has accumulated enough insight into himself that he can take an action that demonstrates his ability to put the needs of others above his narcissistic compulsions. In the current draft at least, the script offers Cole that opportunity — and he declines to take advantage of it. (You might argue that, given the specifics of Cole’s situation, this is his only choice. I would argue that’s the fault of the terms that the script has set up, so it’s no excuse. Imaginary words are endlessly malleable.)
The Movie Star makes the case that all of us, including folks who are living in homeless shelters, are damaged and that we’re all worthy of respect. I’m all for that. I also think that case could have been made more persuasively.
Playwriting isn’t just a matter of making a series of choices about what happens next; it also involves building a structure that releases meaning and delivers narrative satisfaction.
THE MOVIE STAR by James Barclay. Directed by Tracy Labrosse. A Black Box Theatre Co. production. At the Waterfront Theatre until August 23. Tickets and information.
PHOTO CREDIT: (This photo of James Barclay and Christi Arellano was taken by Gabrielle Roland. Lighting by Anna Morton.)
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