Christopher Plummer's one-man show, A Word or Two, has opened in Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theater, its U.S. bow after debuting at the Stratford Festival in Plummer's native Canada. So is it, as one might expect at his somewhat august age, a summation of one of the legendary thespianic careers? Well, yes and no.
Usually what happens at this point in a great career is an actor or actress will craft a show that partly meanders through the many anecdotes of their (literally) storied career, and partly acts as a "greatest hits" tour. I'm not knocking it, it's a tried and tested format and when it works, it can be unforgettable--as with Elaine Stritch's vodka-slaked Live at Liberty turn some years ago.
Plummer and his collaborator Des McAnuff go for something different, in some ways more ambitious. A Word or Two is a knowing misnomer. One word? Two? This is a flood, a torrent or words, as can be guessed from the cunning set--a climbing spiral of books that form a veritable literary stairway to heaven made up, presumably, of millions of chapters, sentences, paragraphs and words. It an apt visual metaphor for a narrative that takes the audience down Memory Lane with Plummer and up the dark alleys of the future, as he contemplates the central role words have played in his life--from childhood to, in horrified anticipation, the grave.
But heaven can wait, I hope, until Plummer has given us at least a few more turns. Because there is no more hypnotic presence on our stages. Even though the show has its weaknesses, it is well-nigh impossible to look away from that face, experience and cavernous emotion seemingly etched on every contour and into every line; impossible to stop listening to that honeyed voice, combining as it does sweetness with power. The flaw, ironically, is the show's unwillingness to trust the words. Almost every time Plummer seems to settle down to give one of the great theatrical speeches, from Hamlet, say, or his old drinking buddy Dylan Thomas, he gets about a minute in and then hobbles it with a flip comment for an easy laugh. It's a shame, and the few times his text does let him linger on, well, a text, the show is immensely more effective.
I admire what he tries to do, getting away from the usual formula, but it's not quite enough to talk about words. However fine his narrative is, it's not Shakespeare, and we all know how magnificent his Hamlet was. Skimming over it is like hearing a lecture at the Tower of London about the crown jewels and then being rushed through the gem chamber itself. And how I would have loved to have heard, after he talked about pub conversations with Thomas and Richard Burton (two of the very few name-drops in the show, it must be said) , Plummer bring his remarkable intonation to the opening speech of Under Milk Wood, Thomas's masterpiece and Burton's signature turn.
It is the final third, where Plummer turns jovially morose (yes, apparently there is such a thing) about his own terror of death, that really, finally, rises to the heights. Because here we understand a universal truth, that the light of literacy can help illuminate the fog of all our unknown endings. Or new beginnings. Or whatever lies in store. Words, says Plummer, make it easier to contemplate that mystery. And nobody speaks 'em like he does.
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