Fasten Your Seatbelts

Bette Davis Ain’t for Sissies – Velvet Fox Productions 

 

Regarded by many as one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history, Bette Davis was known as one tough lady. Although she began her career as a Broadway actress, Ms.Davis was known for her willingness to portray arrogant, cynical, unsympathetic characters, the roles no other actresses wanted to play. Ms. Davis is remembered for starring in films of a variety of genres. She appeared in historical and period motion pictures, contemporary crime dramas, suspense, horror and comedy movies. But Ms. Davis’ greatest success was in the many romantic films in which she starred. A two-time Academy Award winner, Bette Davis is remembered today as a classy, one-of-a-kind actress who portrayed, much like the actress herself, so many strong, uncompromising women who never backed down from a fight.

Television, commercial and film actress Jessica Sherr found herself captivated by a biography about Bette Davis that she happened to read. With many unanswered questions still rattling around her brain, Ms. Sherr began doing more research on the legendary screen actress. Her sleuthing resulted in an hour-long, one-woman show, which she performed in New York, London and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. After bringing her highly lauded solo performance to Chicago a year ago, the Athenaeum Theatre commissioned Ms. Sherr to expand her one-woman performance into a 90-minute one-act. She’s done exactly that, returning to the Athenaeum stage once again with a show that includes additional scenes and even more obscure material from Bette Davis’ turbulent life.

The play opens in 1940 with a stunningly glamorous Bette Davis returning home from the Academy Awards. The ceremony, however, is still going on. But because the Los Angeles Times inadvertently leaked the names of all the winners, before they even received their gold statues, the starlet already knows she won’t be adding a third Oscar to the pair she’d previously won. No, Hollywood’s most productive and artistic year would be celebrated by honoring such blockbusters as “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz.” Unable to tolerate this humiliation, or being in the same room with so many less-talented film artists, Bette begins dishing to us about Vivian Leigh, Hattie McDaniel, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland, Judy Garland and many other celebrities. 

Between phone calls from directors, her beloved, over-protective mother Ruthie, and other family members, Sherr’s Bette Davis changes costumes, transforming into the movie star at various stages of her professional and personal life. Elegant, batting those famous, smokey eyes, the actress downs glasses of Scotch and smokes countless cigarettes and shares a multitude of fascinating stories and memories about the people and events that made Ms. Davis a legend of the silver screen.

 As the evening progresses, the audience soaks up delicious tidbits about the making of Bette Davis’ most famous films. They include “Dangerous,” “Dark Victory,” “Jezebel,” “The Little Foxes,” “Now Voyager,” “Mr. Skeffington,” “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” and “The Whales of August.” We delight in hearing stories about her less successful films, as well as why she lost certain roles to other actresses. We also learn the details of her famous court case in which she attempted to free herself from a contract that made her the sole property of Warner Bros. 

The details that Davis shares about her backstage rivalries and relationships with the costars of “All About Eve” provide some of the evening’s most entertaining gossip. That famous film, which won the Oscar for 1950’s Best Picture, tells the story of Margo Channing, an aging Broadway star, and Eve Harrington, an ambitious younger fan, who insinuates herself into the star’s life, threatening to destroy her career and personal relationships. It’s during this film that Davis uttered one of her most famous lines: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” It could also serve as the subtitle of this delightful biographical piece.

In Jessica Sherr’s newly-expanded, 90-minute version of her well-researched solo performance, audiences will find themselves mesmerized by this animated, energetic performer. Resembling Bette Davis during her younger years, Ms. Sherr easily becomes the feisty, uncompromising movie star as she spills the beans on the inner workings of Hollywood during the Golden Years. We learn an incredible amount of information and surprising facts about the private life of this film icon. By the end of the evening, Ms. Sherr has infused her audience with a shared adoration of what made Bette Davis a legend, a household name and a movie star whose work will never be forgotten.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas                

Presented May 24-June 17 by Velvet Fox Productions in conjunction with the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available at the box office, by calling 773-935-6875 or by going to www.AthenaeumTheatre.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.