Local theater company stages celebrity-penned play

Kirk Baird

Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2000 | 9:28 a.m.

What: "Bermuda Avenue Triangle."

When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 2 p.m., Sunday; through Sept. 24.

Where: Off Broadway Theater, 900 E. Karen Ave.

Cost: $16 general admission; $14 seniors, students and matinee.

Information: 737-0611.

After finding out there was an ongoing local production of the play "Bermuda Avenue Triangle," actress/writer Renee Taylor seized the opportunity to pass along some tips.

"Tell the actress (who plays Fannie Sapperstein) to cry all through the play," Taylor said in a recent phone interview from New York City. "And do 100 variations in crying. Tell the director he can call me if he wants. I'll give him some tips."

Her advice was meant to be passed along to Carl Butto, artistic director for the Off Broadway Theater, which is staging the play Thursdays through Sundays through Sept. 24.

If it seems a bit much for someone nearly 2,500 miles away to offer tips to a director in Las Vegas, understand that Taylor co-wrote "Bermuda" along with her husband, actor/writer Joe Bologna, and originated the role of Fannie on Broadway in 1997 -- a part, in fact, based on her mother.

So Butto listened to Taylor's suggestions and was even excited that she had offered further advice if he wanted.

"I'd heard that about them," Butto said of the writing duo's willingness to help out.

Butto, however, may not need it.

"Bermuda," he said, has been well received by audiences, playing to a packed house during its first weekend performances.

"Because of laughter the show is running two hours and five minutes," Butto said. "I thoroughly expected it to run only an hour and 50 (minutes), maybe an hour and 55 (minutes).

"It's just one of those shows. It starts and it goes and it gets funnier; a very well-written comedy."

"Bermuda" is centered around two widows -- Fannie, who's Jewish, and Tess La Ruffa, who's Italian -- who are relocated by their daughters into a condo at a Las Vegas retirement community. The women each have their own issues to deal with and, in the twilight of their lives, are repressed -- unable and unwilling to enjoy life.

Enter an elderly con man, John Paolucci, who charms and seduces them, and in the process helps them rediscover the joys of living.

While this may seem like serious material, it's almost all played for laughs -- a style that certainly isn't something new to the husband-wife writing team.

Besides "Bermuda," Taylor and Bologna have written and starred in several other comedies that have appeared on Broadway, including "Lovers and Other Strangers," "It Had To Be You," and their most recent collaboration, "If You Ever Leave Me ... I'm Going With You," an autobiographical account of the couple's 35-year marriage.

"Laughter is a celebration," Bologna said, also from New York. "It's a very positive choice. Even when you're satirizing something, you're celebrating that thing. You're saying, 'Look how silly this is and look how silly we are.' But you're not indicting anyone or anything.

"That's what plays are about."

Plays are also writing about what you know -- or, in this case, who you know. For "Bermuda," the duo turned to relatives and friends in creating the characters.

As previously mentioned, Fannie is based on Taylor's mother, whom Bologna said "cried all the time, loved to tell the story of her life."

Tess, he said, is based on two of his aunts, "who are very tough and emotional and have a kind of primal sensuality that was surpressed by their toughness."

And John, whom Bologna originally played on Broadway, is a combination of people, he said. "One of them was a friend of the family who was a man-about-town and quite a ladies' man.'

When asked why they set "Bermuda" in Las Vegas, Bologna said it was simple.

"We were going to set it in Florida, then found out that Las Vegas was the fastest growing retirement community (in the United States). Also, the central male character is a gambler, so it just seems to fit that place," he said. "And Las Vegas (provided) a more glitzy environment for these people to be caught up in.

"It's not a question that once you say, 'Hey, it belongs in Las Vegas,' you don't think of any place else. You don't say arbitrarily, 'How about there? No, how about here?' The play itself dictates where it should be located.

"The fact that these mothers were moved by their daughters away from their hometown into a retirement community, that immediately ruled out a lot of places."

Even with the play's extended run, in theaters both on and off Broadway, the couple aren't finished with "Bermuda" yet.

Bologna said he and Taylor recently completed a film script based on the 3-year-old play. The couple is "talking to some people and studios" about making it into a movie, he said, in which they would reprise their stage roles and could begin filming sometime next year in Las Vegas.

"Hopefully we'll know soon," Bologna said.

Kirk Baird is an Accent feature writer. Reach him at kirk@lasvegassun.com or at 259-8801.