Monologue -" The Rarest of Birds," Miami Beach, 5/4

[cubanmiamiboy]

On Friday I went to see a one man play at one of my favorite spots, the Miami Beach Film Society. I got the idea of starting the "prettiest" thread after getting out of there and listening to my mom brag about how "beautiful" Monty was.

Anyway...from the MMFS website:

FRI, MAY 04, 8:30pm:

“CINE-THEATRE”

Miami Premiere!

THE RAREST OF BIRDS

A LIVE ONE MAN PLAY based on the Life and Work of Montgomery Clift

Starring Omar Prince

Written by John Lisbon Wood and Omar Prince

Directed by Bill Fabris

The characters represented in this play, both recorded and live,

are performed by the actor playing

Montgomery Clift.

SETTING:

The action takes place in a dressing room off the Freud movie set at Geiselgasteig Studios, a former psychiatric concentration camp in Munich, Germany . Director John Huston had locked Montgomery Clift, who is playing Sigmund Freud, in his dressing room to work off his inebriation. Clift ruminates about his life and career, revealing his drug and alcoholic addictions and his struggles with homosexuality.

He was one of our greatest and most influential actors. The most idolized Matinee Idol of his time.

And one of Hollywood's most tortured souls. He spoke six languages. Elizabeth Taylor begged him to marry her. He was friends with Picasso, Matisse and Gertrude Stein. He became the first uninsurable actor in Hollywood. Marilyn Monroe said that he was the only person more messed up than her.

The show is a must-see for students of cinema, the Golden Era of Hollywood, movie buffs and historians, archivists of gay life and theater aficionados of all types.

All of Monty's seventeen films and the major plays are mentioned in the play, as well as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Olivia De Havilland, John Huston, and Kate Hepburn, who appear as voiceovers in conversation with him.

The Rarest of Birds, was penned by both actor and playwrights,

John Lisbon Wood and Omar Prince and stars Omar Prince.

The show runs approximately 75 minutes with no intermission.

“AN EXTRAORDINARY REINCARNATION!”

-Robert Windeler, Backstage

“The theatre season has just begun, but star Omar Prince delivers a turn that must be remembered at the end of the season as one of its best.”-Doug Strassler, OffOffOnline.com

“Prince manages to strip Clift's character bare with pitiless candor and a heartfelt honesty that is palpable as he drifts in and out of madness…As he jumps in and out of time and his own caricature, creating multiple vignettes, THIS TRAGEDY MOVES WITH A REMORSELESS BEAT AND PRIDE THAT BECOMES AS HYPNOTIC AS ITS SUBJECT MATTER.”

-John Hogland, Theatrescene.net

[dirac]

Thanks, cubanmiamiboy. Sounds like a depressing evening, I fear. Tell us more about the play. How were the voiceovers used, for example?

[cubanmiamiboy]

Thanks, cubanmiamiboy. Sounds like a depressing evening, I fear. Tell us more about the play. How were the voiceovers used, for example?

dirac, the voices were heard around the auditorium. It was the same actor mostly quoting phrases from Clifft's friends and peers-(Taylor, Houston, Monroe, etc...). I still didn't "get" the Clifft character. The guy was acting at one point almost histerically, which is not the image-(preconceived, I know)-I have from the man.