AP News, July 1st, 2007
Before Mame Dennis and Vera Charles, those bosom buddies of "Mame" fame, the epitome of fractious female friendship on Broadway must have been the relationship between Kit Markham and Milly Watson Drake.
Their tempestuous bonding is chronicled in "Old Acquaintance," an early 1940s comedy by John Van Druten, better known these days from its spirited if more melodramatic 1943 movie incarnation starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins.
Unfortunately, the Roundabout Theatre Company's tame, if expensive-looking revival probably won't do much to inspire further re-examinations of the play, which creaks along with an excess of chatter and a minimum of dramatic oomph. The slow-moving production, directed by Michael Wilson, opened Thursday at the American Airlines Theatre.
Although both ladies are authors, Kit and Milly are studies in contrast: the first, a well-respected if not exactly best-selling writer; the latter, a writer of popular successes but without much literary cache.
Kit also is the ultimate in Manhattan sophistication _ or at least Milly's 19-year-old daughter, Deirdre, thinks so. The older woman has had a series of lovers, including her current flame, a handsome, younger man, although Kit doesn't want her protege to know about the affairs.
Of course, Deirdre finds out, right after falling in love with Kit's young paramour. And he with her.
Mom is not too pleased. But then Milly is a flighty, suburban divorcee, awash in insecurities and unable to get much respect from her offspring even if the mother's bank account has been considerably fattened by the sales of her books.
Davis, who played Kit, and Hopkins, as Milly, generated considerable star power in the film, which differs a great deal from the play. The movie adds a lot of back story that examines their lives in earlier times, including Milly's unhappy marriage. It also allows the fabulous Davis to suffer nobly and smoke up a storm _ but then everybody in the film seems to puff away constantly.
At the Roundabout, the story is more tightly focused and the star wattage not nearly as bright. A reserved Margaret Colin is a tad too wholesome for Kit's worldliness, almost conscientious in her bohemianism. Harriet Harris, an expert comedian, gets carried away with Milly's neuroses, at times, too cartoonish for what "Old Acquaintance" is trying to say _ although, it must be admitted, Hopkins is voraciously campy in the celluloid version, too.
At its heart, Van Druten's play is surprisingly unsentimental _ at least when it comes to love. Neither woman has had much luck in the romance department, and each longs for what the other has. Milly's ex-husband (nicely underplayed by Stephen Bogardus) turns up in Act 2. He's basically around to serve as a plot point.
The daughter, played here by Diane Davis, is a bit of a pill, particularly in Davis' shrill performance, but Corey Stoll scores as Kit's junior admirer.
When the talk gets tepid, the audience can always examine the exquisite detail of designer Alexander Dodge's opulent New York settings: Kit's painting-filled Washington Square duplex and Milly's Park Avenue apartment, gilded to the gills. David C. Woolard's costumes are equally opulent.
Van Druten is something of a forgotten man on Broadway, despite being the author of "The Voice of the Turtle," "I Remember Mama," "I Am a Camera," based on Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories" (which later became the musical "Cabaret"), and "Bell, Book and Candle." This refurbishing of "Old Acquaintances" won't do much to bring him out of the shadows.
