“The Graduate” The Wilshire
Theatre
Stepping into the role originated by Anne Bancroft in Mike
Nichols’ groundbreaking 1967 film, which was brassily
reimagined by Kathleen Turner on Broadway, Jerry Hall makes a
sultry, sassy Los Angeles debut as Mrs. Robinson, the troubled
alcoholic who finds solace in an affair with the son of longtime
friends.
While the narrative structure of the popular film is largely
intact in this stage version, a few variations help keep the
production from becoming a stale rehashing of a story everybody
knows by now. In one of the play’s final scenes, for example,
Benjamin (in a mature turn for former “Boy Meets World”
star Rider Strong) and Elaine (an appealing Devon Sorvari) actually
confront Mr. and Mrs. Robinson’s hypocrisy, instead of just
wordlessly hopping on a bus.
And while Turner played the aging seductress as a bold and
in-your-face type of woman, Hall manages to take the character back
down a notch to a more subtle place, imbued with a graceful sadness
and a desperate loneliness. Even her nudity is less over-the- top:
When Hall bares all, the lighting is so low, it’s hard to
tell the extent of her nakedness.
In fact, the set design itself falls in line with Hall’s
performance, consisting mainly of a series of endless doors that
serve as the backdrop for every room in Benjamin’s journey.
The metaphor that he can take many possible paths is perhaps
obvious. Yet the play’s blocking doesn’t overuse the
doors as actual props, turning them instead into a more subtle
reminder of the title character’s quandary.
If there is a weakness in “The Graduate,” it’s
that many of its best moments come from the film and therefore
became ingrained in America’s pop-culture memory long ago.
Killer lines like “Do you want me to seduce you, is that what
you’re trying to tell me?” seem like throwaways, only
included begrudgingly in the hopes that no one will cringe upon
hearing them one more time.
-Sommer Mathis