Theater Review—

A Staged Biopic Of Susann & Mansfield At Long Wharf

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN — Paper Doll, by Mark Hampton and Barbara J. Zitwer, is a stage version of what the movies call a “biopic” – it is a recounting of the relationship between Jacqueline Susann and Irving Mansfield, her husband, manager and tireless promoter, who promised to make her famous and did – as the author of three trashy novels that had the record-setting distinction of each making it to number one on The New York Times Best Sellers list back in the 1960s: Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine and Once is Not Enough.

The piece is currently in production at Long Wharf Theatre. During intermission recently we couldn’t help listening to the conversation of three ladies of a certain age: “Oh, I remember reading Valley of the Dolls,” said one.

“Oh, yes,” said her friend, “that was considered real smut back then. We all read it.”

“Well,” said the third, “I wish this play were either much livelier or much smuttier than it is.”

She may have had a point but actually Paper Doll is was pretty entertaining, once it gets going. The acting is terrific, there are some funny jokes, and there’s Josephine, the most wonderful dog I have ever seen on stage – and she (he, actually) was on stage a lot.

The idea behind the show is that back in the Sixties, before the romance book industry had begun to proliferate junk books like fast food, the wisecracking Mansfield had figured out that the way to win the heart of his “paper doll” – Jackie, the down on her luck Philadelphia born chorine – was to turn her into a marketable commodity that would win her enough fame to finally gain the attention of her emotionally distant father.

He did this by creating the persona of Jacqueline Susann, the egregious, pill popping, booze swilling, publicity-grabbing lady in signature pink – pink chalk, pink paper, pink typewriter, pink Cadillac, pink airplane… – who crisscrossed the country tirelessly, signing copies of her books for her devoted fans. One example of Irving’s genius was his realization that books that were signed by the author could not be sent back to the publisher.

Constructed largely as a series of monologues, the play purports to show the real Jackie beneath the veneer, a woman of private sadness over the autism of her only child, who struggled with breast cancer for 12 years before she finally died of the disease.

Dixie Carter does a beautiful job of intertwining the public and private characters. She mixes acts of gratuitous kindness towards the “little people” who make up her fans, with ruminations on the meaning of her writing.

Her books are meant for secretaries who ride the subway back and forth between an unhappy marriage and a job they hate. They want to read stories about the rich and famous, what parties they go to, whom they meet and what kind of sex they have – on yachts, in palaces, in mansions – and then, how they are just as miserable as everyone else.

 “If I told them how happy the rich and famous really are,” she muses, “they’d be angry.”

As Irving, Jerry Grayson comes across like a manic Milton Berle, spinning Borsch Belt jokes and pouring his energy into keeping Jackie’s reputation – and her spirits – up.

“She can’t talk about her real feelings.” he says. “She writes them in her books. Me, I drink,” he adds, holding up a bottle of Pepto Bismol.

Jackie appreciates his devotion.

“What I like about Irving,” she says, “is that he never tells me no. If I say I want to climb Mt Everest, he’ll say ‘Not in those shoes!’”

It is easy to believe that their marriage lasted 32 years.

In addition to the principals, Joanne Genelle gives some delightful turns as three different minor characters – a hooker, a television interviewer, and a spaced out makeup artist named Rainbow.

Adrian Rieder is also winning as Jesus, the janitor who becomes Josephine’s official dog walker, and eventually, through Jackie’s assistance, a bartender at the kind of club where he may eventually get “noticed” and begin the climb to “success.”

Under Leonard Foglio’s direction, Paper Doll is about as entertaining, as glitzy and as meaningful as Susann’s writing, and as innocently smutty.

(Performances continue on Long Wharf’s Mainstage through April 6. Shows are Tuesday through Saturday evenings, and Sunday and Wednesday afternoons. Call 203-787-4282 for Paper Doll performance and ticket details.)