Joe's View

If “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” — which just opened at the 13th Street Rep in Manhattan — had as much wit and energy as its best cast members, this new off-Broadway spoof would be terrific rather than just sporadically amusing.

The show is reminiscent of some of the kitschy Hollywood stage send-ups that Charles Busch has written and starred in — riotous off-Broadway comedies like “Shanghai Moon” and “Die Mommie Die!” — but the exposition-heavy farce by Ilya Sapiroe never quite gets up to speed.

It’s not easy to do a spoof of Hollywood dreck — in most cases, the old B-movies themselves are funnier than any re-staging could hope to be. How do you top “Mommie Dearest” (1981) or “Road House” (1989) when it comes to inadvertent laughter?

“The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” is derived from the same crazy B-horror movies that inspired the 1981 Steve Martin movie, “The Man With Two Brains.” On more than one occasion in the 1950s and 1960s, whole movies were built on the idea of finding a suitable body for a human head preserved after an accident. “They Saved Hitler’s Brain” (below) is perhaps the worst of these head-in-a-jar flicks, so Sapiroe had nowhere to go but up with his spirited spin-off.

“Anne Frankenstein” was obviosuly put together on a shoestring budget but the tackiness of the set and most of the costumes adds to the oddball charm of the piece. Much of the tiny budget appears to have gone to the wild get-up worn by the zany Hollywood star who finds herself stranded at Frankenstein’s castle, Sylvia Beasley (played with manic, Charles Busch-like intensity by Jessica Caplan). The star wears a creepy fox stole that looks like it was trotting through the woods moments before she put it on.

Downtown drag performer Mimi Imfurst is way over-the-top as Frankenstein’s first experiment gone wrong, a female monster (with something extra) who hides out in the mad doctor’s attic, writing about her woes in the diary that becomes a living — and very amusing — character as played by Lavinia Co-op.

“Anne Frankenstein” could use some serious cutting — we can see the cast strenuously moving setpieces around during the too-frequent “blackouts” — and a stronger ending, but the lively company of actors puts most of the show across.

(“The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” is running through Nov. 8 at the 13th Street Rep, 50 West 13th St. Tickets are $22.50. For more information, call 212-352-3101.)

The non-profit Community Theatre in Fairfield is marking the first anniversary of Paul Newman’s death with a week-long film festival that starts today at 4:30 with a screening of the 1973 best picture Oscar winner, “The Sting.”

 I’ve been thinking a lot about Newman and his movies over the past few weeks. The paper had me do a big anniversary feature last week that spurred me to have my own mini-festival at home and I was struck once again by the incredible variety and quality of the work that Newman did in film for 50 years.

Biographer Shawn Levy — who I had the pleasure of speaking with for the story — devotes as much of his new book “Paul Newman: A Life” (Harmony Books) to Newman’s acting and directing as he does to the star’s admirable offscreen life as a philanthropist and as a very good neighbor here in Fairfield County.

Levy points out the rather remarkable way that Newman juggled frankly commercial projects (that made him one of the most popular film actors of his time) with riskier fare that pushed him as an actor. Unlike many stars who are more than willing to coast on their popularity, Newman kept testing his fans with unsympathetic characters (“Hud” in 1963) and pictures that were frankly antagonistic to the prevailing mood in the land (1970’s “WUSA” was a bitter pill that was a flop in theaters and is now almost impossible to find on video or cable).

One of the reasons that Newman was able to thrive on screen for so many years was his willingness to work on material that pushed him outside his own comfort zone.

The 1977 hockey comedy-drama, “Slap Shot” — which is being screened at the Community tonight at 9:30 and on Monday at 7 p.m. — allowed Newman to revel in the new freedom of Hollywood movies in the 1970s, with lots of profanity and nudity in this funky tale of a failing team in gritty Johnstown, Pa. It’s one of the actor’s finest performances because he was so willing to blend in with the very un-Hollywood setting and a young cast drawn from the theater rather than film (Swoosie Kurtz and Lindsay Crouse both contributed memorable work, early in their careers). Newman was also willing to test the audience’s affection for him with what is perhaps the nastiest moment in his screen career – when the desperate coach taunts the female team owner (Kathryn Walker) with a filthy remark about her young son.  

Newman scored two of the biggest hits of his career with pal Robert Redford — first in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” in 1969 and then four years later in “The Sting.” I wouldn’t rank either of these hits among Newman’s best movies, but as sheer escapist fun they are hard to beat (and the star’s chemistry with Redford is fantastic — what a shame they were never able to team up again on screen).

My favorite late Newman vehicle is included in the Community festival, the 1994 Robert Benton comedy-drama “Nobody’s Fool” in which the actor plays a rather broken-down Hudson Valley blue collar guy who we learn is really the glue that holds his community of friends and neighbors together. Newman relaxed into this role, and tapped new depths in his talent, in a way that reminded me of another great star near the end of his career — Burt Lancaster’s magnificent performance as the old numbers runner in “Atlantic City” (1981).

“Nobody’s Fool” is being shown tonight at 7 p.m.

(The proceeds from this “Remembering Paul Newman” festival will go to the late actor’s charity, the Hole in the Wall Gang camps. For complete schedule information, go online to www.communitytheatrefoundation.org or call 203-255-6255.)