NEW JERSEY REPERTORY COMPANY
Quentin Chisholm and Éilis Cahill co-star in “Make Believe” at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
Bailey Hunter, a young matinee idol, and Eleanor, a Pennsauken-born prostitute, are in a Los Angeles hotel room, one night in 1935. As they talk, they realize that both of their professions can be summed up by the phrase, “make believe.”
“It’s a funny expression, isn’t it?” says Eleanor. ” ‘Make believe.’ ”
“Yeah,” Bailey responds. “But that’s exactly what we do, you and me. We make other people believe in something that doesn’t exist.”
“But it’s something they want to believe so bad,” says Eleanor. “Whether it’s real or not, they’ll pay us for it.”
Bailey and Eleanor never have sex. But that’s not what they are in the hotel room for, in John Biguenet’s two-actor play “Make Believe,” which is currently having its world premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
Bailey (played by Quentin Chisholm, seen at NJ Rep last year in “The Bookstore”) is gay. And to dispel rumors about that, his press agent has concocted a scheme: They hire a prostitute, Eleanor (played by Éilis Cahill), get a hotel room and tip off the press that she and Bailey can be found there. The ensuing scandal, they hope, will prevent a potentially more damaging one about Bailey’s homosexuality.
They plan to minimize the damage to Bailey’s reputation by creating a sympathetic story about Eleanor. She won’t be a prostitute in the story, but a married woman with an abusive, institutionalized husband. She is devoted to her spouse, despite everything, but fell in tragic love with this irresistible actor she met at the insane asylum (he was visiting a friend there), and strayed from her marriage vows just this once.
ANDREA PHOX
Quentin Chisholm and Éilis Cahill in “Make Believe.”
“We’re just a man and a woman in love, holding onto each other even though fate is against us,” says Bailey.
“They’ll eat that up — the women, at least,” says Eleanor.
“Make Believe” — directed by NJ Rep artistic director SuzAnne Barabas — takes place entirely in the modestly furnished hotel room, with the famous Hollywood sign visible outside the window. (It correctly reads “Hollywoodland,” since that what it said from the time it was built in 1923 until 1949, when the last four letters were removed.) Bailey is there alone, at first, but Eleanor soon arrives; the 75-minute, one-act play lasts until just before the reporter and the photographer arrive.
While Bailey and Eleanor wait, they chat. Small talk at first, but eventually things get serious. They agree that, since they will basically be acting out parts for the press, they should come up with in-depth back stories for their characters, so that everything seems believable. And they do so, imagining how the two lovers met, and were attracted to each other, and slowly got closer and closer until, on this night, they decided to consummate their relationship.
In the process, Bailey and Eleanor share how unsatisfied they are with their own lives, and show how much they yearn for the storybook romance of the story they dream up, and the strong connection that their characters have. As Bailey and Eleanor make more and more of a (nonsexual) connection of their own, “Make Believe,” despite its tawdry trappings, takes a turn, and becomes sweeter and sadder than I would have anticipated.
NEW JERSEY REPERTORY COMPANY
Quentin Chisholm and Éilis Cahill in “Make Believe.”
This is not, honestly, the most exciting play: It is basically a conversation that meanders for a quite a while before getting truly deep. But Biguenet does touch on some universal truths, about the fictions we all construct to help us deal with the disappointments of our lives. (Although he doesn’t emphasize the point, it is hard not to think about current affairs, as well, when Bailey worries about J. Edgar Hoover listening in on his telephone conversations.)
While Chisholm and Cahill do a good job at making Bailey and Eleanor seem believable, there were some moments when I questioned the characters. Would a Hollywood megastar, in any era, really be so unassuming and self-effacing as Bailey is? And while Eleanor is bluntly honest about the hardships of her life, she seems only mildly embittered about it all, accepting everything with a shrug and a wisecrack.
Of course, it isn’t just actors and prostitutes who specialize in make believe. Playwrights know a thing or two about it, too.
New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch will present “Make Believe” through March 9. Visit njrep.org.
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