See How Beautiful I Am: The Return of Jackie Susann

Description
**** (four stars) See How Beautiful I Am is a must-see for Valley of the Dolls fans, and they are legion. It is as straightforward a one-woman biopic as you’re ever likely to see. No surprises, and hurray for that! Excellent theater need not break new ground; beautifully executing the conventional is quite enough, thank you. Writer Paul Minx has meticulously researched every detail of ’60s trash novelist Jacqueline Susann’s life, and Debora Weston flawlessly embodies this pop-culture icon and fame whore (and apparently, regular whore as well, if the accounts of her exploits are to be believed). This show is a delicious dish of the author’s struggles as an actress, feud with Truman Capote, affair with Ethel Merman and failings as a litterateur. But this is not a play without substance. Susann was also the mother of an autistic child, and it is hard not to feel empathy for a woman who never let the world see her cry. Minx, Weston and director Paul Dubois have great fun exploring the interplay between facade and core. Is Susann more than her false eyelashes, falls and falsies? What does it matter, if you look fabulous and everyone believes it?—Scott Wooledge, Special Projects Designer