Yes, R73 and Whoopi was a no-show. Also, they re-wrote parts of the play that took it to full camp to fit the talent at hand.
R49 The Ava play is not a masterpiece but it is certainly plenty good enough to please many people who remember her heyday. If you would go in the first place, you'll be glad you did. It was full at the performance I attended.
McGovern is playwright and one of the two performers. The show has production value, and it has been smartly designed to be a one-truck, small, package touring product. Good for her for making work for herself. It's a rental, not an MTC show, though it's in their space.
The play could still be 5-7 minutes shorter, and it switches back and forth in time a lot. It helps to know all the characters in her stories, it might not always be clear who the guy is playing if you don't know exactly. McGovern has a lovely presence and a stageworthy spark, and she's giving a detailed and praise-worthy performance that isn't a slavish imitation, yet you always believe she's Ava. The actor opposite her is excellent too. Moritz V.S. directed, and that was money well spent. The show is tastefully done all around, it looks good, it moves and feels as modern as any play about a past time in most of the audience's shared memory is ever going to, and it has an intelligent concept, if no profound takeaway or heretofore unknown revelation. There are newspaper clippings, still photos, and bits from trailers (because of copyright law) of her films projected onto the walls to transition between scenes, as scenic dissolves, etc.
To her great credit, she manages most of the time to keep the play from being a book report disguised as playwriting. It doesn't even name check the majority of AG's films, it's not a collection of tales from the set. It has a construct from real life, a ghostwriter for her autobiography who didn't work out, they argue and go back and forth as he tries to get her to disclose more about her past while she talks about her very different, non-acting life in London. It's the story of both of them.
It gets AG from the sticks to Hollywood, then cycles through her husbands (Artie Shaw, Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra) and other relationships (Howard Hughes).
AG's autobiography ended up being written with someone else, but this first ghostwriter published this book of "secret conversations" that is the basis for this play, with authorization from her estate. It makes you want to track down the book and read more about Ava, watch her movies. She made more classics, or at least well-received films that people still watch and talk about, than I had remembered.
The only true fumble, and it's clearly a choice: it needs an old-school sound + lights/projections button on the end to let the audience know without a doubt the show is over. There was a half beat in the dark of the audience collectively thinking "is that the end?" but it immediately got back on track once the lights were up and the curtain call applause started.
