STAGE TALK by Carol Viescas

Florence Foster Jenkins couldn’t sing. But she thought she could. That’s the basis of El Paso Playhouse’s newest production, “Souvenir,” directed by Ivan Sandlin. Jenkins spent the first half of the 20th century, and a lot of her late husband’s money, trying to prove to the world she was an operatic diva.
“The story is about the relationship of Florence Foster Jenkins and her accompanist, Cosme McMoon,” said Sandlin, who directed “Black Coffee” last at the Playhouse. “The story opens with Cosme at the piano in the bar at the Ritz Carlton in New York City. The day happens to be the 20th anniversary of Jenkin’s death. The story starts there and flashes back to their meeting, and ultimately establishing this musical partnership.”
Jenkins was quite a character on the New York scene.
“Jenkins was in her late 50s at the time and determined that she was an opera singer,” Sandlin explained. “New York grew to know her as ‘The crazy lady who couldn’t sing.’ Astonishingly, she developed a following, which led to her recording records and a sold-out SRO performance at Carnegie Hall. The tickets for the Carnegie Hall performance sold for $2.40 and the show was sold out in two hours’ time (pre-computer and Ticketmaster). Scalpers were selling the tickets for $20,” Sandlin added.
Just as intriguing was Sandlin’s reason for choosing the show in the first place. He was looking through play catalogs for ideas. In the end, the blurb on the play in the Dramatists Play Service catalog captured him.
“I have researched the rest of the story and it is quite intriguing — her childhood, marriage, later relationships and her position as NYC’s social elite in the arts,” Sandlin said. “Part of the intrigue is that she was preparing to enter a career as a concert pianist when an injury to her arm brought that dream to a halt. Unable to play, she taught music.
“I am perplexed that she could be so tone-deaf with the musical training she had,” Sandlin added. “Through the audience’s laughter and the hysteria at her performances, she never knew that those sounds were not rapturous sounds of adulation. She said, ‘In days to come, when my voice is not perhaps quite so strong as it is now, to be able to hear it as it once was! In all its glory! A lovely souvenir. ...’ In Cosme’s last lines about her, he says, ‘What the audience heard was one thing. What she heard was something else.’”
Jenkins is played by Playhouse regular Darcie Georges and McMoon by the Playhouse’s esteemed accompanist, Ballard Coldwell.
“There is singing a la Foster,” said Sandlin, who many remember as the Pope in the Playhouse production of “The Day They Kidnapped the Pope.” “But only snippets to give the audience a taste.”
Of the two-member cast, he thought the shoes of Jenkins would be hardest to fill.
“I thought casting the female role would be the most difficult — a singer who has to violate training or abilities to sing off key. As it turns out, there are not many male actors that play piano, sing and act — quite the challenge.”
But, Sandlin said, directing the two has been a delight.
“Working with Darcie and Ballard is such a pleasure,” Sandlin said. “Both are creative and willing to give a memorable life to this story.”

Carol Viescas is a veteran of
community theater and teaches
journalism at Bel Air High School.

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