“Why do the Bettys get all the good things?”, asks Lavinia Draper, a flailing actress locked up in a Floridian jail cell for drunk and disorderly behaviour. She’s referencing the Bettys of the 1980s — Betty Buckley, of Cats on Broadway; Betty Boop, of about 100 cartoon films; and Betty Ford, of being married to Gerald Ford and setting up a drug rehabilitation centre. It’s a succinct piece of dialogue that perfectly encapsulates Lavinia’s tragic-comic character: she’s struggling and self-pitying and you entirely understand why.
Doing Time With Lavinia unfolds as a profoundly moving, profoundly entertaining hour of comedy-drama, during which Lavinia (an incomparable one-woman performance by Susan Campanaro) takes us on a guided tour of her showbiz life. From being a bikini-clad youth on the beach in Florida, to a NYC party girl atop a bar table, to an understudy for the prodigious role of Grizibella in Cats, to here — now — an alcoholic delinquent behind bars. With musical numbers along the way!
Campanaro gives a sensational turn as Lavinia, endlessly warm and sympathetic with an absolute gift for audience participation. “Have you girls ever heard of Betty Buckley?”, she asks us, eyelashes batting. “No”, we sheepishly admit.
“Well, you can look her up on TikTok or something.”
The show is, of course, also very funny. There’s some banger lines, thrown away like they’re nothing special, so densely packed is this hour of music and dialogue (“I’m a Catholic Jew… a cashew.”). There’s also wonderful prop-work, featuring a very convincing jail toilet and the most versatile use of a wrap dress you have ever seen in your life (that’s a guarantee). For some relatively minimal staging, Campanaro achieves an incredible amount of location changes, and we gleefully accompany her every step of the way.
And that’s not even mentioning the music. Doing Time With Lavinia is, principally, a musical — and what MUSIC it contains! Campanaro has a beautiful, full, throaty voice and attacks the show’s original score with great confidence, emotion, and success: there’s the number about her business-stroke-romantic pursuit of Walter in Vegas, the boppy number thanking Betty Ford, and the supremely touching finale.
The play’s ending is immensely affecting, as Lavinia invites us to join her in her heartbreakingly hopeful mantra. “As long as I’m working, I’m happy”, she exclaims, looking down on her audience with defiance and resolve, “As long as I’m breathing, I’ll just keep going on.”
Doing Time With Lavinia is a masterpiece of a show — a very secure 5-stars.
The show is running until 24 August at studio at C aurora.
Buy tickets here.
Image courtesy of Barry Church-Woods, provided to The Student to use as press material.