Sexual Perversity in Chicago

The 1980s romantic drama About Last Night, which stars Rob Lowe and Demi Moore as a twentysomething couple, is based on a David Mamet play called Sexual Perversity in Chicago. The producers changed the name. They didn't think the movie-going public would go to a movie called Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Sounds too much like a porno.

-

The stage version of Sexual Perversity has only four characters. Danny and Deborah are the couple in love. Bernie is Danny's co-worker. Joan is Deborah's roommate who may or may not be a lesbian. Bernie and Joan do their darnedest to keep the happy twosome apart.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago is a tragedy. It opens with Bernie regaling Danny with a story of a sexual conquest (that's probably not true.) It ends with Danny and Bernie lusting after women as they sit on a beach. Between those two scenes, Danny meets Deborah, falls in love with her, moves in with her, falls out of love with her, and moves out. He comes full circle. He's back at square one. He threw his love away so he could be what? A lone wolf howling at the moon.

This is tragic. In his four-star review of the film, Roger Ebert writes that "when a big new relationship comes into your life, it requires an adjustment of all the other relationships, and a certain amount of discomfort and pain." Perhaps it's the tragedy of our times that few people are willing to accept that.

I have alienated my friends by refusing to accept it. When my best friend got married and moved in with his wife, I was too stubborn (or too stupid) to accept that he was - to borrow a Biblical metaphor - one flesh with his wife. No longer could he go to a movie with me on a whim. I had to call ahead, make plans, see if the wife wanted to come too. The wife wound up resenting me, then hating me. She probably would have torn a strip off me had I not come to my senses and offered her a full-fledged apology.

So few of us are able to deal with change.

-

About Last Night may be a good movie but it's not a good adaptation of Mamet's play and I wouldn't blame him for disowning it. The play ends in tragedy but the film ends on a hopeful note. Deborah and Danny, estranged after a year, bump into each other at a baseball game. The next thing you know, they're running off together. Cue the happy 80s music. Cue the feel good "awwwws." Let's go get wasted.

The moral of Sexual Perversity in Chicago is "Grow up!" The moral of About Last Night is "Love conquers all."

-

This one time in Campbellford, Ontario, I was talking to Brenda Finley, a Canadian actress who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and, for a while, was the news anchor for CFAC Television in Calgary. She was in Campbellford because she was doing a one-woman performance of A Christmas Carol at the Westben Theatre, which was owned by her brother, Brian.

I asked Ms. Finley what her favourite stage role was. She said there were two. I can't remember the first but the second was Sexual Perversity in Chicago.

"Were you Deborah?" I asked.

"No, I was the lesbian," she said.

"Is Joan a lesbian?"

"Traditionally, she's portrayed as one."

And we talked about David Mamet for a while.

-

When I first read Sexual Perversity in Chicago, it looked familiar. That's because I'd read Bernie's opening speech years earlier in a book of monologues. That monologue describes an encounter Bernie has with a kinky nymphomaniac who wants him to make love to her while she wears a World War I flak suit (whatever that is.)

I tried performing the monologue but it just didn't work. I was 17. I didn't think anyone would believe me when I told them I was having sex with a girl in a hotel room that was on fire. When I was 17, I was a virgin.

Two years later, I'd star in my first Mamet play.

Meet Al Pacino

I got to meet Al Pacino last night. He was at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa doing a one-night-only event. Dressed entirely in black, he regaled a sold out audience with stories from his acting career. A brief montage of Pacino's film work preceded the great man's entrance and – yes indeed – we gave a standing ovation when the lights came up to show him standing front row centre.

He mentioned David Mamet once and I whooped for joy when he did.

Although he was there, in theory, to talk about his life's work, the majority of his time was spent discussing The Godfather and Scarface. There was nary a mention of Glengarry Glen Ross.

After the show, Mr. Pacino proceeded to a backstage area where he would meet and be photographed with the audience members who had purchased VIP packages. There were about 200 people in that little room and each of them got about five seconds with the man. I got my picture taken with him, which I reproduce below.

I'm the one on the right

Here is a brief transcript of our conversation:

Al: Hi.

Steve: Hi, I'm Steve. I'm a big fan of David Mamet.

Photographer: Okay, look at me please.

Al: I'm working with him on a new play in New York.

Steve: What's it called?

Al: China Doll.

Usher: Okay. you have to go.

Steve: I better go, Al.

Al: Bye.

I was going to ask Mr. Pacino to give me a title for Rotating Pineapple, my sister blog where I write a note a day. I didn't have time to ask, but I'm cheating and using China Doll as my title. You can read it at www.rotatingpineapple.com

In any case, here are a few memorable things that happened at the event:

- One 51-year-old lady told Mr. Pacino that he was the sexiest man alive and would love to tango with him like he did in Scent of a Woman. He said he would try to do that during the meet and greet but, alas, it never happened.

- One man called Pacino the greatest teacher he ever knew. He said that in 1992, he was lying on a mattress in a basement somewhere with hypodermics in his arms, severely underweight, wanting to die. Watching Pacino's performance in Scent of a Woman made him want to live and stop defining himself by his disability. I think that his speech sincerely touched Mr. Pacino and reinforced the notion of the healing power of art.

- After shooting the cemetery scene for The Godfather, a young Pacino happened on his director, Francis Ford Coppola, standing next to a tombstone and weeping. Al asked Francis why he was crying and the answer was that the producers wouldn't allow him to shoot the scene again from another angle. "That's a man I want to work for," Pacino said. "If you can cry because you weren't allowed to shoot another scene, you have passion."

- You know that famous scene toward the end of Scarface where Tony Montana is sitting in a restaurant with his wife and his best friend? He's drunk, probably high, railing against his wife for being unable to bear a child for him? Well... Oliver Stone had written that scene to take place in a restaurant but the producers, fearing cost overruns, elected to shoot it in a nightclub instead. The idea upset Pacino. He met with the producers and persuaded them to shoot in a restaurant because Oliver Stone had written in that way and the scene would be more effective if it took place in a high-end restaurant instead of a club. The producers reluctantly agreed, even though it cost about $100,000 more. "And that's how actors get a reputation for being difficult," he said.

I doubt you're reading this, Mr. Pacino, but if you are, I'd like you to know I enjoyed the evening very much and please say hello to Mr. Mamet for me.