Burt Reynolds' natural charm comes through in 'Barrymore.' (Damon Higgins / The Post)
It’s fair to say that the Burt Reynolds who commanded the small stage at his eponymous theater Thursday night was not a lot like the one you may remember. Because he spent most of the two acts of William Luce’s “Barrymore” sitting in a chair, this was not the action-y canoeing, Trans-Am racing, football playing Burt Reynolds who will take down any fool daring to lean on Sharky’s Machine. (And heaven knows, we love that Burt Reynolds.)
Rather, the 73-year-old Hobe Sound resident, Jupiter cheerleader and bonafide big huge movie star, used his other Burt Reynolds skills: The confidence. The droll, self-deprecating wit. The perfect comic timing. That deep, deep voice that strikes a moderate amount of tension in the heart of the play’s off-stage “prompter,” played by Burt Reynolds Institute of Film and Television executive director Ken Kay, and in the audience, which spends about two hours in the flinty, haughty, naughty company of actor John Barrymore. And that voice and confidence combine to make Reynolds’ Barrymore as physically impressive sitting down as he would be running from Smokey with stolen Coors.
Luce’s play, set in 1942, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, finds Barrymore rehearsing with that unseen script “prompter,” although Barrymore has little interest in sticking to the script. Instead, he riffs on the tatters of his career, bolstered by the bottle and beset by his own ego, his famous family, naughty limericks, and anything but what the increasingly irritated prompter has been charged to do: Help Barrymore learn his lines to “Richard III.” But when Barrymore does snap, unexpectedly and beautifully, into Shakepearean mode, you get glimpses of the mastery and brilliance that created the legend he’s been busy dismantling.
The moment when Reynolds, as Barrymore, rises under an eerie spotlight to deliver Hamlet’s “To Be Or Not To Be” speech works both as a reminder of Barrymore’s awe-inspiring gifts, and of Reynolds’ dramatic talent, which he wasn’t always given credit for. What’s more, that moment, and others, betray the actor’s reason for picking Luce’s work as the premiere production of his new “Under The Bridge Players.” He sees echoes of his own career in Barrymore’s. Both were young, exciting, lauded stars whose careers seemed unlimited and starbound. But those careers careened off track in a haze of fame, excess and a willingness to believe one’s own P.R.
Although the second half seems a little abrupt, “Barrymore” works both because of the script, a welcoming mixture of sadness, self-aware reflection, humor and winking, and because Reynolds commits so much to it, lending the aforementioned confidence equally to Barrymore’s triumphant moments and to the ones where he’s being a jerk. And enjoying it.
Some of the uneven tone may have come from an unfortunate event – an audience member collapsed from an apparent seizure toward the end of the first act, cutting it short. I’m not sure how that act’s ending connected to the second, which started after the extended intermission. But that may have explained it.
Although it would be fun to see Reynolds doing another thriller where he gets to smack someone around, he’s proven in film and, again, in “Barrymore,” that his power and oomph doesn’t need a a gun, a car or a canoe to be heard loud and clear.
