"A Round-Heeled Woman" is based on the story of Jane Juska, a retired teacher of high school English in Berkeley, California, who placed an ad in the New York Review of Books: "Before I turn 67-- next March I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me." She received more than 60 responses (by mail -- this was 1999).
Actress Sharon Gless, who became widely known as NYPD Det. Chris Cagney on TV's "Cagney & Lacey" and who now plays the Miami mother of a spy on "Burn Notice," optioned Juska's 2003 memoir. TV and film companies took a pass on the story of a woman who goes trolling for would-be sex partners, albeit with the help of a particularly literate come-on. But writer-director Jane Prowse, who had met Gless in London when she was starring in the stage version of Steven King's "Misery," got involved and hit upon a comedic approach to that breaks the fourth wall with Juska as narrator.
Screendom's loss is theater's gain. What emerges at South Florida's GableStage is an affable production. Juska's story here is marked by gasp-inducing humiliations as well as sporadic silliness as it limns not only her late-life encounters with strangers but her life-long strained relations with family.
This is the play's southeastern premiere, having been work-shopped a year ago in San Francisco and given a rehearsed reading in Surrey, U.K., in 2009. (Gless and her husband, "Cagney & Lacey" executive producer Barney Rosenzweig, live part time is South Florida.) This is also clearly a work still in progress. As artistic director Joseph Adler noted in a curtain speech opening weekend, GableStage typically schedules only one preview performance, but A Round-Heeled Woman was in previews for a week. A few days after opening, four performances were added, and a week later, the run was extended for a week.
In Coral Gables, the 90-minute one-act plays out on at an amiable gallop. Gless, costumed in loose skirts and blouses accessorized with an occasional scarf, is onstage always; when she changes from red ensemble to black she's revealed in a dark leotard. Other cast members each play several roles, mostly friends and ad-answering lovers. Most memorable among the latter are Juska's first, an octogenarian (played by Howard Elfman) who steals her underwear and champagne glasses after telling her tersely just how physiologically difficult she had made sex for him; and the youngest (Antonio Amadeo), who shares Juska's appreciation of Anthony Trollope and appreciates her as well. Trollope's 1865 novel, "Miss Mackenzie," in particular resonates with Juska, and Prowse inserts a few posture-perfect, warmly humorous scenes between Miss Margaret Mackenzie and suitor John Ball (Kim Ostrenko and Amadeo in period costumes). But there's no strict parallel: the play makes clear Juska's history of battling alcohol, drugs and weight.
The play has some nifty surprises: mom literally pops up unexpectedly; and one of the men who responds to her ad is said to be a well-known actor but goes unnamed, though there seems to be a tantalizing clue in his note. The dance classes with Amadeo instructing the girlfriends seem pointless, but they set up Amadeo doing a goofily suggestive solo dance as a man having a really good time in bed with Juska; it bookends an early scene in which Gless as Juska holds the solo spot as the partner having all the fun.
In a far different way, audiences can have a bit of fun, as well as a bit of pathos, with A Round-Heeled Woman.
