RICH GIRL by
Victoria Stewart (@ Lyric Stage through April 26th) is based on the
Henry James novel about a shy, dutiful daughter of a controlling father who
does not approve of his daughter’s choice in men. Stewart updates it and makes
the father a controlling mother. And she makes it funny!
The heiress, Gloria
Vanderbilt, famously struggled as a child in a difficult relationship with her litigious
family. Newspaper’s in the 1930s called her “the poor little rich girl” when
everyone wanted her inheritance but no one wanted her. The heroine of Stewart’s
RICH GIRL has the advantage of times being different nowadays …and she has an
advocate in her mother’s sympathetic assistant. Unfortunately she has a mother
from the l930s who tells the girl that she “ruined” her mother’s life by being
born.
Amelia Broome
plays the mother with the hard edge of a pragmatist. She’s a financial guru, a
la Suzy Ormond, and she’s determined to keep her daughter from “ruining” her
own life. The daughter will inherit her financial empire and run the company’s
philanthropic foundation so she’ll be easy prey, the mother reasons, for
fortune hunters. Of course, the daughter falls for a penniless theater artist.
RICH GIRL is smartly
directed by Courtney O’Connor. Sashsa Castroverde, as the daughter who thinks
(because mother told her so) that she is unlovable, undergoes a physical and
emotional transformation when the power shifts in her direction. We’re on her
side when she’s a bundle of frayed and shattered nerves and we’re delighted
when she blossoms. But we’re not sure whether or not to root for the suitor
with feet of clay (nicely played up the middle by Joe Short). It’s Celeste Oliva,
as the trusted assistant, who holds the solution to the conundrum. Her advice is
simple and profound and makes the play worth seeing.
