All About Bette: An Interlude with Bette Davis (Downtown Fort Worth)
—Jan Farrington
Bette Davis should have sung Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here”—it was her kind of number.
The formidable actress of Hollywood’s Golden Age made a career of playing strong women who wanted their way, no matter how hard the fight. “Fasten your seat belts,” she warned her friends (and husband) in All About Eve (1950). “It’s going to be a bumpy night.” But there was never much doubt about who’d be standing when the weather cleared and the dust settled—at least in the movies.
Offscreen, Davis’ famous eyes told the story: life was a mix of trauma and triumph. Happiness didn’t come to her often, or easily. But she reached for it, every day of her life.
Morgana Shaw is Davis in Camilla Carr’s All About Bette: An Interlude with Bette Davis, playing through June 30 in Fort Worth. Local theatergoers may recall that Shaw premiered the role at Theatre Three in 2006. She’s had a long career in film, theater, and television, and earned top honors with Bette at the Spoleto Festival in Italy.
And she brings Davis startlingly to life—though for the first few minutes, I wasn’t sure this would work.
Muffled in layers of what Davis calls “vintage Edith Head,” Shaw is barely visible at the start—under a hat, behind glasses, in a haze of cigarette smoke. The figure she cuts is more waxwork than lifelike, almost a parody. But get past the visuals, and you begin to hear the stories: of her father abandoning the family, her mother struggling to feed Ruth Elizabeth (“Betty”) and her sister. Of marriages to men “I shouldn’t have gone to dinner with.” Of loves lost—one of them a famous film director—and children who write memoirs. Of battling the studios, battling her age, battling her own belief she wasn’t beautiful—and, as a constant thread, wanting to punch Joan Crawford in the face.
Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours—especially when Shaw ditches the layers and comes alive in a satiny ‘50s cocktail dress a la Margo Channing, hair down and flying in that signature Davis move—bending forward just to toss it all straight back. Now we’re cooking. Shaw’s physicality is spot on: arms on hips, head high, body in motion, giving intensity to every word she says.
It’s a simply presented production, the stage empty but for a few telling theatrical pieces: a well-traveled steamer trunk, a stage light, a pair of flip-up theater seats, a ladder—and a glittering, crystal-clear podium. Oscar-worthy, one might say. Recordings of Davis singing old tunes are played pre-show and at intermission (she’d have done well singing Weill, too), and her friend Robert Wagner has some recorded words to lead us in and out of the play. Davis occasionally talks to individuals in the audience, and at times looks past us, “seeing” film clips that we can’t. (Would projecting actual film clips have taken something from Shaw’s performance? Not sure; but it might be fun to experiment.) Carr’s script jumps around in time but covers the ground, making good use of some of Davis’ best zingers—though I might note that the jump to “the end” of the story felt rather abrupt.
Shaw and husband Ken Orman live locally, and are among the show’s producers. Wanting to get Bette up and running again after the long Covid “break,” they talked local impresario Frank Ford into loaning them the Four Day Weekend comedy venue in downtown Fort Worth for one night per week (with a few Sundays thrown in). The audience for our show was small but enthusiastic—and an interesting mix of young and older.
Davis complained that she never got to make movies with her favorite actresses—because studio heads thought each of them could “carry” a film by themselves. Likewise, Morgana Shaw fills the stage with her presence, and carries off her solo portrait of Bette the star and Bette the woman—flawed, fierce, and hard to forget.
WHEN: Through June 30; shows on Thursday nights (plus two Sunday matinees)
WHERE: Four Day Weekend Comedy Theater, 312 S. Houston Street, Fort Worth
WEB: allaboutbette.us
