Bonnie Gable Channels Gertrude Stein in Pittsfield
Pancho's Restaurant Offers Dinner and Theatre
By: Charles Giuliano - Sep 23, 2007
Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein
By Marty Martin. Starring, Bonnie Gable. Events Coordinator, Lisa Taylor. Co-Produced by Susan Jameson and Fidel Morino. Sets by Dion Robbins-Zust. Costume by Barbara Simms. Presented by Pancho's Restaurant's Blue Iguana Room and the Way the Heck Off-Broadway Theatre Company. 156 North Street, Pittsfield, Mass. 413 499-2266
Arriving for dinner at Pancho's in downtown Pittsfield we bought our theatre tickets ($15 each and $10 for seniors) and reserved a table in the adjoining Blue Iguana Room. We were a bit early and I asked Bonnie Gable, who was sitting in a wheel chair, alone on the minimal stage, if I might take a picture as I would be reviewing. That sparked her interest as I don't imagine that there is a lot of coverage of such way the heck off Broadway productions. Also, I expressed interest in Gertrude Stein and asked if we would be meeting Alice B. Toklas this evening?
"She's asleep in the back room because it's raining," Gertrude answered. Well, actually, it wasn't raining. A rather lovely fall evening in fact as we went back into Pancho's to order a quite affordable Mexican dinner. The soft tacos we had as appetizers were the best I have had since abandoning my favorite taquerias in East Boston. But the Carne Asada was a bit too thin and it appeared that the chef left too much of the outer skin on the fried onion. Astrid enjoyed the Leguna en Salsa Verde, good sauce, but the tongue could have been more tender. Next time we will try the fajitas which looked tempting and the enchiladas or chimichangas. It is good to know that there is authentic ethnic food in Pittsfield. Finishing our meal with a nice flan for dessert we headed into the adjoining Blue Iguana room.
It was helpful to know a lot about Gertrude Stein prior to the performance by the local Lenox born artist. For openers, there is the matter of the density of Stein. She was huge. An enormous block of a woman. The Jo Davidson sculpture of a seated Stein emphasizes the massive form. He saw her as a kind of Buddha. Of course there is the 1906 Picasso portrait which turned her face into an ersatz African mask. It was a transition to Cubism which would occur just after the 90 or so sittings that went into her portrait.
So the picture in my mind's eye of the historic Stein was not at all like that of the somewhat smaller, pretty, and delicate featured, frail, but feisty Gable. Also, years ago in the 60s, I was among a circle of friends who were Gertrude Stein fans and aficionados. We gathered in the Lamont Library at Harvard and heard some of the recordings which were a source for Martin's play. She had a slow, grave, and ponderous speaking voice. Compared to which Gable's voice is more sensitive and delicate in tone.
That said, Gable, the actress and persona, proved to be every bit as fascinating and absorbing as the subject of her one woman show. She gave us a Gertrude Stein. Perhaps not, to me, The Gertrude Stein. But A Gertrude Stein. And, more importantly, the small miracle of her presence and performance especially its fragile but firm power and determination with just tons of grit and courage.
Gable proved to be a wonderful spinner of tales. There were all the familiar stories and anecdotes. Paris in the era of the Lost Generation, a term Stein coined, came alive for us and the remarkable circle of friends that inhabited her salon. Which started with her art collector brother, Leo, and then morphed into those famous gathering with the notorious hash brownies of her companion Alice B. Tolkas. As Gable later informed us when she encouraged questions about Stein following the performance, Gertrude and Alice never referred to themselves as lesbians. It was still, even then in Paris, what Oscar Wilde referred to as "The love that dare not speak its name."
On many levels the performance was a struggle and challenge for Gable. There were glitches as she lost a line or floundered to find her place and pick up the thread of the narrative. But rather than being put off we found ourselves hanging in and rooting for her, urging her on, with our own warmth and smiles at the many amusing moments. The brief flyer that accompanied the event informed us that she has some 30 years of experience in the theatre but that the past few have been particularly hard. She is returning to stage after an absence of six years during which she survived a stroke, kidney failure, a coma, and some 75 operations. The drive and desire to return to the theatre is described as a force and motive that sustained her. This was the passion and intensity that was conveyed to the audience which proved to be so moving.
As to Stein herself, man, what a character. Much was made this summer at the Williams College Museum of Art of Sara and Gerald Murphy, but the truth is, Leo and Gertrude, and later Gertrude and Alice, were the heart and soul of the Lost Generation. Compared to them the Murphys really were just rich dilettantes. Nobody of her time could match Gertrude for pure intensity of ego and originality. The Cubism of her text was the equal to that of Picasso on canvas. Hemingway sat at her feet like a lap dog and disciple, fed on her creative crumbs, stole from her eccentric and highly original style and then, as he did to the Murphys, his arch rival, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude and Alice, and all of his other friends from the Paris days, trashed them in his nasty late book "A Moveable Feast." Hemingway, like Picasso, was brilliant, but a real shit.
Not Gertrude, apparently, as Gable's monologue richly reminds us. She was the real deal. A self invented artist and sensual, erotic, lustful woman, a true original who could comment with precise insight on the "Making of Americans" and was able to stand toe to toe and eyeball to eyeball with the best and brightest that Europe and America had to offer. She was a true friend and equal with Picasso who befriended Gerald Murphy in order to try to get into the pants of his beautiful wife. Picasso was really a shit.
During the Q&A Gable was asked why more people don't know about Gertrude Stein. Is she read in college English courses? It is more likely that she pops up in art history courses as an early collector and subject for Picasso. Or, perhaps, as a heroine and curiosity in women's studies. Such a dreary academic pursuit. Stein belongs in the field of People Studies. It is her unique humanity that interests me. But one senses that she was right in being insecure about her art. The books are difficult and an acquired taste. It takes commitment and effort to come to them and there is little reward or bragging rights to struggling through them as there is really nobody to discuss the effort with. Unlike taking on Joyce, her peer, whom Gable reveals she and Alice could not stand. One might become a Joycian. But not a Steinian. And the perks are obvious and direct for reading Hemingway and Fitzgerald. They are their own reward. Wonderful writers who never really fade from fashion. Compared to them Stein is tough and stark.
Each new generation has to discover Gertrude on their own. But if you do, chances are, you get hooked. She sucks you in. Proves to be just too huge and engulfing. There is something bottomless. It evokes aesthetic freefall. And also a great sadness that she is easily overlooked and misunderstood. Reduced to a couple of anecdotes and dismissed.
Gable, however, channeled her. It may not really have been The Gertrude but it was A Gertrude who filled our hearts and minds last night. It was a wonderful evening of dinner and theatre that we enjoyed on many levels thanks to this way the heck off Broadway production.