‘Garbo’ Probes Real Lives With Sensitivity

Even among the myriad exotic personalities caught up in the glitzy swirl of Hollywood in the 1930s, Mercedes de Acosta stood out as a true original. Keenly intellectual, socially dazzling and openly lesbian, the poet-playwright-turned-screenwriter kept company with some of the era’s most glamorous talents.

Rescuing De Acosta from obscurity and creatively speculating on her most enigmatic acquaintance--the notoriously private Greta Garbo--are ambitions successfully realized in “Garbo’s Cuban Lover” from the MACHA Theatre Company at Studio City’s Ventura Court Theatre.

As writer-director-star Odalys Nanin’s program notes make clear, her play is more erotic reverie than authentic reportage, in which De Acosta’s relationship with Garbo (Lydie Denier) is conjecture suggested by the guarded biography and letters the ailing De Acosta published at the end of her life to help pay for medical treatment.

Accuracy notwithstanding, it’s an intriguing, well-performed portrait of romantic obsession and the attraction of opposites, skillfully shaped with emotionally probing dialogue and well-chosen passages from De Acosta’s writing. Dan Reeder’s Art Deco set pleases, but some staging distractions (actors freezing to allow exposition, awkward scene transitions) warrant further attention from Nanin and associate director Ivonne Coll.

As De Acosta, Nanin displays convincing sensitivity, wit and disarming candor as she chronicles a frustrating 30-year roller coaster that in the end leads De Acosta to conclude, “I loved her but I never knew where I stood with her.”

As Garbo, Denier complements De Acosta’s fire with icy reserve, nailing the screen siren’s enigmatic, humorless appeal (even the occasional pangs of laughter that punctuate her sullenness seem wrenched against her will) while making no excuses for her supreme selfishness. Catherine Domareki, April Marie Smith, Maria Bergman, Phil Hunter and Myeva Surjik portray less nuanced assorted Tinseltown icons, but the essential leads are shaded with satisfying complexity--De Acosta tempering passion with pragmatism, Garbo yielding to her most torrid appetites.

*

“Garbo’s Cuban Lover,” Ventura Court Theatre, 12417 Ventura Court, Studio City. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 28. $20. (323) 965-9333. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.