On Theater: Solo acts win Man and Woman of the Year in Theater honors
Forty years ago, this column inaugurated what has become an annual tradition of recognizing two people who had made outstanding contributions to local theater in the previous 12 months.
The first pair so honored, in 1974, were David Emmes, co-founder of South Coast Repertory, and Doris Allen, a dynamic actress-director who later turned to politics and spent a brief period as speaker of the state Assembly before her untimely death.
To merit this recognition, dubbed the Man and Woman of the Year in Theater, the recipient must have distinguished himself or herself on local stages or behind the scenes during the preceding 12 months. And, in fairness, no one could earn the honor more than once.
This year, the spotlight falls on the Laguna Playhouse, where two performers excelled in that most perilous of theatrical formats, the one-person show. One channeled his late, legendary father, and the other assumed the role of a prominent literary figure.
They were only briefly in our midst, yet they left an indelible mark on playgoers’ consciousness. The are Chris Lemmon and Linda Purl, Man and Woman of the Year in Theater for 2014.
Lemmon made up the entire cast of “Jack Lemmon Returns,” a spellbinding account of the late double Oscar winner’s life and career. Hershey Felder, a familiar figure in one-man shows at the playhouse, wrote and directed the tribute
This column described the performance as “a memorable achievement” and “a deserved tribute to one of our greatest movie actors.” The evening became “intensely personal” when Lemmon, as his father, turned to the dad’s relationship with his son, Chris, known as “the hotshot.”
The elder Lemmon, who gave perhaps his greatest performance as an alcoholic in “The Days of Wine and Roses,” knew from whence he spoke in that movie. Thirty-five years later, on “Inside the Actors Studio,” Jack revealed that he an alcoholic.
A few months later, Laguna audiences were treated to a bittersweet piece of memorabilia with “The Year of Magical Thinking,” in which Linda Purl assumed the character of noted writer Joan Didion, who lost her husband, fellow writer John Gregory Dunne, and daughter over a two-year span.
“To say that Purl ‘plays’ Didion is somewhat inaccurate,” this column observed. “Rather, she ‘inhabits’ Didion” and “truly ‘becomes’ her with a fierce and unyielding conviction that elevates the stunning effect of her solo performance.”
In the character of Didion, Purl achingly described how, after her husband died, her daughter Quintana was “lying in a hospital bed with septic shock resulting from pneumonia.” Having been down that road myself eight years ago, I was particularly moved by Purl’s performance.
These two superb performers, highly proficient at holding audiences spellbound, gave Laguna Playhouse audiences ample motivation for the standing ovations bestowed on them. Chris Lemmon and Linda Purl share Man and Woman of the Year honors on this 40th anniversary year of our tribute.
