We have another review of the Paris production Hotel Dorothy Parker sent to us by director-playwright Rachel Salik. The show is such a success it has been extended and will move to a larger theatre. Rachel says that in mid-April the show will move to the 350-seat Théâtre de la Pépinière-Opéra and run all summer. Congratulations to her, the cast, and crew. Read about the show and get ticket information here.
Here is another positive review of the show from Paris’ Le Monde newspaper:
Le Monde
19-20 Feb. 2006
Four Caustic New York Ladies
“Eddie sprained his wrist sharpening a pencil,” said Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) about her husband. Each of her phrases was meant to get a laugh. She was only 5’3″ and wore amazing hairdos. She published thousands of items, articles and literary and theatrical reviews in the major magazines or, in 1937, in New Masses, a short-lived Communist weekly.
She wrote poems, short stories and scenarios, such as A Star Is Born and The Little Foxes. In Boston in 1927, she participated in demonstrations to save Sacco and Vanzetti. For the Spanish Civil War, she was in demonstrations and went to Madrid with Hemingway. She willed her royalties to the NAACP.
Nevertheless, she had a blazing private life while remaining the darling of the “intellectual leftist elite”.
A play freely based on her work is on view at the Théâtre Les Déchargeurs, written and staged by Rachel Salik, called Hotel Dorothy Parker (she lived almost always in a hotel and made the most of remarks overheard in the elevator and in cafes).
One of her best short stories is called “Big Blonde” and Rachel Salik puts four ladies onstage, four model women by Dorothy Parker and also four Dorothy Parkers, not one inseparable from the others.
They come and go, play verbal darts, squabble and have a lot to say about their men. The show has gaiety, poetry and tragedy that fly like arrows. It is a delight. The actresses have a devil-may-care presence.
MICHEL COURNOT