By Eric George Tauber
SAN DIEGO –If you had a chance to dine with celebrities and bigwigs, would you feel delighted, intimidated … or both?
This was a once in a lifetime opportunity offered to Eric Hanes, the late father of Dr. Ann Charlotte Harvey, Professor Emerita of SDSU’s School of Theatre, Television and Film. Now retired, Dr. Harvey is turning her hand to playwriting. Dinner with Marlene is based on a true story from her father’s life.
A business trip to Paris in October of 1938 brought Hanes face to face with the legendary Marlene Dietrich. Her thirteen year-old daughter, Maria, needed a chaperone. Hanes agreed to escort the young lady and was invited to a private dinner party in return.
Brian Mackey is very likable as Hanes, our everyman “nobody” who steps into an elite world of “somebodies” for a quick visit. Star-struck by Marlene Dietrich, he’s good-natured and just nebbishy enough to be relatable.
The dinner party was hosted by Barbara Woolworth Hutton. “Many dimes make millions.” By 1938, she had married and divorced both a Georgian Prince and a Danish Count. Rachel Van Wormer was delightful as she gave Hutton the airs of an aristocrat with the brash swagger of an American.
The dinner is joined by Erich Maria Remarque, Dietrich’s lover and the author of All’s Quiet on the Western Front, renowned violinist and composer, Fritz Kreisler and Bernadine Boubiel –the only fictional character- a wealthy dealer in antiques and estates.
The champagne is bottomless and they plumb the depths. Hutton insists that the evening not be spoiled by talk of politics. But in 1938, politics peppered every course. Artistic Director Robert Smyth described it as a time that was ‘fast receding, but important to remember.’ The Third Reich was on the rise. The restrictive Nuremberg Laws were in force. Austria had been annexed in the Anschluß. The Sudetenland had been ceded to Hitler in the Münich Pact and Neville Chamberlain infamously declared that he had “achieved peace in our time.”
Jason Heil as Remarque and John Rosen as Kreisler both spoke with moving conviction about their opposition to the Nazis. All’s Quiet… had been burnt by the Nazi’s as “unpatriotic” and Kreisler, half-Jewish himself, was appalled when he could no longer play Mendelsohn. They chose to live in exile rather than play by the new rules of the game.
However, Boubiel, played by Cynthia Gerber, admired the “New Germany” crediting Hitler for “making Germany great again.” And this raises questions as to just how she came by so much high-class merchandise.
Deborah Gilmour Smyth as Marlene Dietrich was smartly dressed for dinner in a man’s white tie and black tailcoat. She parlays her words like a skilled swordsman with graceful flourishes and cutting bite. Goebbels was courting her for his Nazi propaganda films, but Hollywood also beckoned.
Avery Trimm adds some welcome comic relief as Maria. Precocious and keenly observant, she calls them like she sees them and gets away with it by plying an impish charm that melts indignation.
Dinner with Marlene offers an evening of elegance, wit and sophistication. If Masterpiece Classic is your idea of “must-see TV”, then Lamb’s Players will make you feel right at home.
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Tauber is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com Comments intended for publication in the space below must be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his or her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the United States.)