Douglas Fairbanks sits at a dining table somewhere in limbo. He has been dead for 37 years since his last words, ‘I never felt better’. Fairbanks is tall, handsome, wearing a white shirt (which inevitably, at one point in the piece, comes off), piratical earrings and a bandana in his true swash-buckling style.
The two actors fill 55 minutes of this short play and manage admirably with a somewhat undramatic script. Gerardo Cabal as Fairbanks gives us all the bravado and self-aggrandisement of the old silent film star known as ‘The King of Hollywood’. Through his performance we are told some of the star’s enduring achievements: founding the Oscars (he never won one while alive, though there was a posthumous award) and creating the first artist-led studio in United Artists, along with Charlie Chaplin, D.W.Griffith and Mary Pickford). But that is the problem with the writing, it is more or less a monologue of Fairbanks’s life and I could have read a biography for that.
We pass through his impoverished beginnings with a wastrel, bigamous father and on to acting; first he was in touring theatre, off Broadway, then Broadway where his stunts attracted the attention of the movie makers. With engaging honesty, the character explains his artistic vision – he became a movie actor because it paid more and, as a day job, it allowed him time to party in the evenings. At least we get to know a bit of Fairbanks’s character.
Fairbanks is joined on stage by a short, silent man, played sensitively by Simon Lawrence. He mimes all the other parts including, amusingly, Mary Pickford, the love of Fairbanks’ life. The constant presence of the character Fairbanks plays to, and expects reassurance from, makes this a buddy play.
The writer Paul Stone is good on such details as Fairbanks’ marriages, his multiple injuries while doing his stunts, the origins of Batman in The Legend of Zorro and of Superman seen in Fairbanks’ general vitality. The focus is on Fairbanks’s genuine regret for the pain he has caused people who loved him, but ultimately the script lacked the dramatic tension needed to keep us glued.
Cast: Gerardo Cabal, Simon Lawrence
Playwright & Director: Paul Stone
Performance dates: 15-19th October 2024
Running time: 55 mins