Play Reading Brings Vivian Vance To Life

We seldom get a look at the real person behind an actor’s persona. We’ll simply accept that the character they portray – especially if it’s an iconic character in one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time – is pretty much who that person is. That the veneer is the substance.

But playwright Eric Weinberger – who wrote “A Dog Story” for the Waterfront Playhouse a couple of years ago – found himself digging a little deeper into actress Vivian Vance, more widely known and loved as Ethel Mertz, the slightly dingbat next-door neighbor to Lucille Ball and Desi Arzaz in the classic “I Love Lucy” television series. And what he found surprised him and changed his view of a very misunderstood consummate performer.

A special staged reading of Weinberger’s latest play – “I Love Ethel: The Story of Vivian Vance” – will be performed this Sunday and Monday, April 3 and 4, at The Red Barn Theatre in Key West. The reading stars Marjorie Paul-Shook as Vivian Vance, Laurie Breakwell as Lucille Ball, David Black as Desi Arnaz, Richard Grusin as William Hawley (Fred), and Jeffrey Harwell. All actors will actually play many parts throughout the play.

“Someone gave me the biography of Vivian Vance a while back,” Weinberger said. “It was called ‘The Other Side of Ethel Mertz”. And I became fascinated with this very colorful and talented woman. She had a very inspiring life – talented far beyond the one character she became forever associated with.”

Vance started her career on Broadway, Weinberger said. She worked with Ethel Merman in the original production of “Anything Goes” and several other Broadway hits, and she had a very successful nightclub act she toured the country with. She was smart – quite the opposite of Ethel Mertz character – and she really knew how to entertain.

“Then I saw Marjorie Paul-Shook in a vaudevillian number a couple of years ago, and I knew I had my Vivian. Marjorie’s a consummate performer in her own right. And…she looks remarkably like Vivian.”

The play touches on Vivian Vance’s relationships with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, of course, and is quite funny because of that association. But it is more about Vance herself – her relationship with her parents and her several husbands, and what life was like after “I Love Lucy” left the airwaves. And because Vance was such a great singer, the play includes a number of songs she sang on Broadway and in her nightclub act. “It’s a play with music,” Weinberger said. “We take her life from her teens onward. You really get to see how amazing a woman she was.”

Tickets for the readings are only $20, and can be purchased by calling 305-296-9911 or going to redbarntheatre.com/tickets. Curtains are 8 pm each evening.

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