Elizabeth McGovern returns to the New York stage as Ava Gardner

 

I don’t recall ever hearing such noticeably tepid applause as I experienced last night at New York City Center following the performance of Ava: The Secret Conversations. This is especially significant because the star of the show, and its playwright, is Hollywood darling Elizabeth McGovern. 

This is obviously a passion project for the long-time Lady Cora of “Downton Abbey” fame.  When the original playwright dropped out, she decided to pen the script herself.  This seems to have blinded her to how thoroughly unlikeable she was making the characterization of the 1950s and 60s film legend Ava Gardner.  Eighty-five minutes of watching and listening to that vulgar, profanity-spewing person was miserable.  I saw the woman next to me look at her watch three times.

McGovern based her script on the book The Secret Conversations by British journalist Peter Evans and Gardner.   Directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel, it is set in 1988 when Gardner is recovering from a stroke in her sumptuous London flat.  (Scenic design by David Meyer.)  It’s more about Gardner’s three disastrous marriages – to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra – than the woman herself.  Her relationship with the physically and emotionally abusive Howard Hughes is also highlighted.  All of these famous folks are pictured in projections by Alex Basco Koch and portrayed by Aaron Costa Ganis who is also onstage as Evans interviewing Gardner.  His accent goes from believable English to the kind of exaggerated English we use when pretending we are British.  It also sounds American at times and I’m sure I heard some Brooklyn in there as well.

McGovern, looking slim and striking in Toni-Leslie James’ Hollywood glam costumes, also hams it up, making Gardner a caricature. 

Gardner died at 67 in 1990, the year her cleaned-up version of her life appeared as Ava: My Story.  Evans later gained the rights to his notes and tapes for his book, which was published after his death in 2013.

Ava: The Secret Conversations premiered in London, where McGovern has lived for decades, in 2022 and had a run at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles the following year.  After New York it is scheduled for Chicago and Toronto.