BELOVED

She's hot." "Oh, yeah, she's hot," "The hot younger girlfriend." So leer James, Sarah and Richard, the literate and somewhat self important trio of Donald Margulies's "Time Stands Still." They're talking about Mandy, Richard's much younger girlfriend who is offstage powdering her nose.

The interesting thing is, the actress playing Mandy - the hottie in question - isn't really all that pant and sweat inducing. Oh, she has been before, back in her pre "Clueless" jailbait days, and she certainly could be again. But that's not really what Alicia Silverstone is all about these days.

For that is indeed Silverstone, now age 32, rounding out the four person cast of a potentially important new play by a significant American playwright. Hot? Not. Costume designer Rita Ryack has Mandy dressed fashionably as a successful young New York event planner might present. Silverstone's bownish blond hair flows free. One scene after we meet her, Mandy is hugely pregnant. In Act 2, she's carrying an infant in a sling. Her character is head over tails in love with a man who is supposed to be some 20 years her senior.

Sillverstone's character is a bit of a ditz, albeit a ditz with a sense of purpose. Mandy is the human mirror through which the character of Sarah (played by Anna Gunn) and the audience see a life reflected. Sarah is a hard-charging photojournalist who goes into war zones and clicks away at carnage, at mothers holding infants who are about to die. Mandy, in no uncertain terms, doesn't like "bummer stories." She doesn't get why a photographer wouldn't put down her camera and take somebody to the hospital instead. If Sarah exists to tell tough stories and open eyes, Mandy embraces a happier, more insulated life. Through Richard (Robin Thomas), Sarah's editor, the two women develop, if not exactly a friendship, a sort of co-existence. In real life, these two women would have nothing to say to each other.

Truthfully, director Daniel Sullivan might have cast any number of slinky young actresses as Mandy _ actresses who are more overtly sexual and perhaps younger than Alicia Silverstone. The part, as written, veers on being a lame authorial mouthpiece who supplies comic relief. Yes, Mandy has a spine, but before we can see it, she gives us monolog after monolog of dopey, fuzz brained Mandy-isms, showing how truly, well, clueless this lady is.

Does the play judge her? Not so much. "Time Stands Still" is Sarah and Jamie's tale. Mandy is there to articulate the playwright's arguments against Sarah. Period. If the actress who plays her can scare up some laughs, all the better. "Time Stands Still," powerful and well constructed though it is, is something of a downer.

Still, I'm glad that Silverstone was cast, and that she's doing a kind of self reinvention on the Geffen stage. This is the actress's third bow at the Geffen, each time in a work by a contemporary playwright with a small cast.

In David Mamet's "Boston Marriage," directed by the playwright, Silverstone played a none too bright Scottish maid named Catherine who comes between an upper class lesbian couple's attempt to bilk a suitor out of a necklace. In "Speed the Plow," also by Mamet, but directed by Randall Arney, Silverstone's Karen was the secretary who nearly killed a motion picture deal between hardscrabble Hollywood friends Charlie Fox and Bobby Gould. (A bit of trivia…in the Broadway production of "Speed the Plow," Karen was played by Madonna.)

When you're working in three or four character` plays at a major regional house with skilled directors, there is precious little place for an actor to hide. Silverstone hasn't needed to. She has now played three interloping outsiders who are assumed - incorrectly -- to be less on the ball than they actually are.

She's good at it. Way back in "Clueless," which still holds up, Silverstone made herself a star playing a ditz who wasn't, a Valley Girl princess with an eye (sort of) for matchmaking, a modern day Emma who good heartedly couldn't get out of the way of her own goofs. The performance was priceless -- fresh, funny, and, yes, a little bit sexy. The actress hasn't come close to duplicating that kind of success. "Blast from the Past" anyone? "Scooby Doo 2?" I look at "Clueless," and I wonder why this lady didn't become Drew Barrymore. Then again, maybe it's better this way. Drew Barrymore isn't setting foot on any stages anytime soon.

I interviewed Silverstone during the run of "Boston Marriage" along with her co stars Rebecca Pidgeon and Mary Steenburgen. Silverstone, though certainly polite, was the least talkative of the trio. Like her character, Catherine, she didn't give much away. The actress has spent a lot of years in the spotlight. I suspect she's pretty careful in what she reveals.

Here's what people forget though…you have to be smart to play dumb. Silverstone has that empty eyed, mouth twisting thing down to a science. Mandy is a fuzz brain, but Silverstone clearly loves and admires her.

Now she deserves better, if not a more intelligent character, then a more smartly and more fully developed lady. In addition to "Beauty Shop" and "Excess Baggage," Silverstone's screen credits include playing the Princess of France in Kenneth Branagh's film of "Love's Labour's Lost." The movie was a flop. I'd like to go back and see what Silverstone did with it. She should do more Shakespeare. She's got the comic chops.

Yeah, that's right, I'm suggesting that someone cast Alicia Silverstone as Rosalind or Beatrice.

Maybe that makes me clueless. I don't think so.

"Time Stands Still" concludes its run Sunday at the Geffen Playhouse. You can read my interview of cast member David Harbour here.

March 12, 2009

Examiner.com