Working out of its new and gaudily-refurbished home, the former Macha Theater, An 11:11 Experience has mounted an ambitious and elaborate production of Famous, the latest work by Michael Leoni, whose 2017 comedy Elevator was a smash hit in L.A. Leoni, who is partnered with Michelle Kaufer in An 11:11 Experience, also directed Famous. The play portrays the last night of Jason Mast (Christopher Dietrick), a handsome young Hollywood actor who, in 1994, has just been nominated for an Oscar. We meet him in his elegant hilltop home and track him through the night, from 9pm to 6 am, suffering agony upon agony. Jason, you see, may be a successful and talented actor, but he essentially hates show business and is unable to find much pleasure in being a star. To put it another way, all he wants is to be an artist, not a celebrity, a commodity. Leoni surrounds Jason with a large cast of characters, all of whom are part of the film world in one way or another. They flock to Jason’s multi-level, ultra-modern house to party with him, although some have more nefarious motives which are revealed as time goes by. What emerges is an all-out assault on the crassness and shallowness of Hollywood and its denizens, most of whom crave money, power, and fame above all else. Let’s not forget about sex as well. A big part of Famous deals with the cynical way sex was treated in those pre-Me Too days. Jason’s brash manager Celeste (Rosanna De Candia), for example, thinks nothing of telling a young actress at the party, Caley (Jacqui Vene), to get a boob job. Nor is she shy about advising the blonde beauty Celeste (Rosanna De Candia) to spread for Jason if she wants to land a role in his new film (despite her boyfriend Brody (Thomas McNamara) being privy to the conversation). To Jason’s credit, he doesn’t take advantage of Celeste, but that’s not the case with Alyssa (Megan Davis), a hard-boiled, bi-sexual party girl who pretty much forces Celeste to go to bed with her. Alyssa is nowhere as repugnant, however, as Jack Rossi (Gregory Depetro), a Harvey Weinstein-like producer who rapes the 16-year-old Caley in a brutally real scene. Much of Famous is lurid. Most of the characters drink hard, snort coke greedily, swap insults, crack wise and do some heavy emoting. The pace of the play is swift, even frantic, throughout, driven by Connor Youngblood’s relentless soundtrack. There aren’t many plays which can boast of wall-to-wall original music. Leoni also uses strobe lights, theatrical haze, and occasional bursts of slowed-up or stylized movement to create his unusual and provocative world. The sprawling story with its dozens of subplots runs well over two hours, which means that the playwright must fight hard to focus on his main story: the self-destructive and tragic end of Jason Mast. One of the subplots uncovers the cause of much of Jason’s pain and torment. We meet him as a teenager (Derick Brezee), being abused psychologically (along with his brother Dylan, Markus Silbiger) by his highly-wrought, desperately ambitious mother (Rachel Myers), and then sexually by his first manager (Kenny Johnston in one of three roles). Jason also feels the pressure which comes with being responsible for Dylan, whose problems are even bigger than his own. That relationship is mirrored in Jason’s connection to his best friend Ryan (Alexander Daly). The latter, perhaps the sanest, most sympathetic character in the play, fights with everything in him to keep Jason from falling apart during this long, night’s journey into day. But poor Jason, driven to the edge by drugs and by the realization that he did not have the courage to prevent Jack Rossi from raping that young girl, loses his own battle with life. Messy and over-produced as Famous is—the actors are all miked in what is still a relatively small theater—the play can be recommended for its valiant, splendid cast and above all for its brave portrait of a flawed but sensitive hero, an artist brought down by a corrupt and philistine world.
