STAGE REVIEW : RUSH AS ‘A WOMAN’--A CHARMER AND A CHAMP

I’ve never met anyone who didn’t admire “A Woman of Independent Means” as a novel, but as a play it has taken its lumps, particularly from the Broadway critics. They weren’t listening.

Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey’s play is back, this time at the Doolittle Theatre, and once again starring Barbara Rush as the elegant and unstoppable Bess Garner Steed. Once again, too, Rush spends an annoying amount of time sweeping around the stage trying on picture hats, as if to illustrate that Bess was one of those people who just can’t sit still.

Illustration is something that this tale-in-letters doesn’t need. It’s all in the words, given an actor who can bring them to life. It’s clear at the Doolittle that Rush is that actor--with or without feathers. Her Bess is an old friend by now. But her effrontery still blows you away and her courage at the end still brings tears.

My favorite Bess story (one begins to think of her as a relative) is the business of the bed. Who but Bess would decide that her late mother’s wedding bed--currently occupied by her ailing father and his second wife--belongs, by right, to her? Who but Bess would have the brass to propose that Papa and Mavis ship her the big bed, in return for Bess’ old twin beds?

And who but Bess would actually be surprised when Papa and Mavis do indeed send her the big bed, but with an eloquent absence of comment? Could it be, she writes back, that they somehow resented her suggestion, made purely out of concern for their health?

After all, she reminds them, in her demure finishing-school prose, twin beds placed side by side give the feeling of “perfect repose,” an ideal sleeping arrangement for a married couple of a certain age--though Mavis is , of course, somewhat younger than Papa.

Mavis is, in fact, just about Bess’ age. The self-deception here is delicious, and Rush doesn’t let it be lost on us that Bess not only wants to arrange the lives of everyone around her, she expects them to be grateful for her supervision. It doesn’t work that way, of course, and she pays for it in the loss of a daughter’s intimacy--more hurtful, in the long run, than the physical loss of her son.

Bess is willing to pay, however. Her most admirable quality is honor, and Rush doesn’t miss the connection with her pride. When her husband dies of the 1919 flu epidemic, she has to decide whether to let his insurance company pay all the claims from the epidemic or to go bankrupt. The tough choice proves to be the right one, financially, but she would have made it anyhow.

A difficult woman, but a champ--and a charmer. One of the unspoken subjects of the play is charm, which Bess possesses genetically, but which she also exercises on paper as a conscious skill, rather like a pianist keeping at his instrument everyday. Without being any less a woman, she is a lady , and she knows how to make this work for her.

She’s particularly funny when she’s ticked off. The chilly bread-and-butter note that follows a humiliating visit to old friends in Connecticut (Bess being from Holly Grove, Tex.) is pure Miss Manners. It is followed by a letter to Choate, requesting information about registering her two sons--presently aged 7 and 5. Bess may have been defeated by the East. Her children will not be.

All this is the stuff of comedy, and Rush knows how lightly to play it. (She could perhaps be even lighter, letting us read certain things between the lines--like Bess, she tends to supervise the audience more than necessary.)

But Bess takes some sorry defeats as well, the worst being a long and infirm old age. The ultimate indignity is the loss of speech, meaning an end to her beloved letters, the mainstay of her years.

But there is one last letter, painfully stammered out in the manner of a child just beginning to master the language. If Bess and Rush haven’t won the listener already, they do now. Though dripping with doodads, “A Woman of Independent Means” is an evening with a character you won’t forget.

‘A WOMAN OF INDEPENDENT MEANS’ Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey’s play, based on her novel, at the James A. Doolittle Theatre. Director Norman Cohen. Scenic consultant Roy Christopher. Lighting Pam Rank. Sound Jon Gottlieb. Costumes Garland Riddle. Incidental music Henry Mancini. Production stage manager Hannis L. Stoddard, III and James O. Williams, Jr. Plays at 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, with matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2, and Sundays at 3. Closes April 13. Tickets $10-$22.50. 1615 N. Vine St. (213) 462-6666.