“Oklahoma!” is indeed a Richard Rodgers show, but Rodgers (Andrew Scott), fed up with Hart’s habit of disappearing on alcohol-fueled binges, has opted to team up with Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney) for this new show. From his box seat, the wounded Hart is convinced of two things: This new show is lighthearted garbage, and it will be a stupendous hit. So as the curtain calls begin, he ducks out to Sardi’s, the West 44th Street institution to which he knows the cast and creative team will eventually repair to gulp martinis and nervously await reviews. He’ll be nice about the betrayal, because he needs some favors. If he doesn’t work again, he might fade away.
Hart was a very short man, and Ethan Hawke is of average height, so the filmmakers appear to have built their Sardi’s set at an exaggerated scale and dressed Hawke in a comically huge double-breasted suit, dwarfing him clownishly — a nod, perhaps, to Hart’s fondness for farce and satire. The stool he climbs onto at that downstairs bar is clearly his natural perch, the start of many a bender and many a tall tale.
But Hart has quit drinking, a last-ditch effort to save his career and probably his life. So he asks Eddie the bartender (Bobby Cannavale, perfectly cast) to pour him a shot of bourbon, just to admire, while he nurses water and his shattered confidence, tells stories and gripes about “Oklahoma!,” a show he finds “fraudulent on every possible level” — all the more galling, given his relationship to its composer. You can tell some of the people in the room have heard some version of this before; to others, it’s all new. But it’s also pretty clear Hart is talking to himself as much as to anyone else.
In “Blue Moon,” almost every line of dialogue (or monologue) functions as exposition, and much of the action registers as thrilling little nuggets of recognition for a certain sort of nerd. That could clank and clunk, and it’s certainly mannered. But it worked for me, probably because the film throws itself into the bit and commits from the first moment (and because, candidly, I moonlight as one of those nerds). Hart, for instance, realizes suddenly that a man sipping a martini is the writer E.B. White — Andy, he knows to call him — and within a few minutes, Hart’s given White an idea that we know will turn into a particular beloved novel. It’s corny, but sweet. Once the “Oklahoma!” crowd shows up, characters wander by or are introduced or make wisecracks, and if you know who they are, you’ll chuckle. Were they there that night? Does it matter? This is the theater, after all.
The way to enjoy “Blue Moon” — and I think it’s terrifically enjoyable, despite the bright thread of melancholy running down the middle — is to settle into the theatricality, especially Hawke’s performance. This is not the kind of role we’re used to seeing him in; sure, he’s played artists and dreamers and idealists, but there’s a vulnerability to Hart, who is self-aware, insecure and just fighting for dear life. The whole film is pretty much nonstop Hart chatter, as he throws off witticisms and barbs and compliments — some tender, some terribly insincere — and Hawke does it all with aplomb, in a terrible comb-over, and you love him.
Source link
