When Lord Windermere in Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” asks: “What is the difference between scandal and gossip?” Cecil Graham replies: “Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”
Those wonderful lines written a century ago are still so very relevant today, which is only one reason why the Shakespeare Theatre’s fabulous production of Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan” is a must see for all of you who just adore gossip.
Tessa’s royal ancestors
Several people noted the resemblance between Tessa Auberjonois, who plays Lady Windermere, and Josephine de Beauharnais (Napoleon Bonaparte’s first wife). In fact, Tessa is actually a descendent of the Bonapartes. Her dad, actor Rene Auberjonois, (Odo in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” “M*A*S*H*,” “McCabe & Mrs. Miller”) proudly told me that his great great great – he wasn’t sure how many greats – grandfather was Joachim Murat, a dashing French field marshal and later king of Naples. His wife, Caroline Bonaparte, was the sister of the Emperor Napoleon. Tessa’s grandmother was Princess Laure of Murat, who was descended from Joachim Murat.
The skinny on Dixie
When I asked Tessa what it’s like to work with Dixie Carter – yes, the very same Dixie Carter who played Julia Sugarbaker in “Designing Women,” now playing Mrs. Erlynne, a Victorian adulteress – she said: “I just look into her eyes and the scene plays itself. She’s incredible.” Tessa discovered that Dixie was incredible in another more personal way as well. During rehearsals when Tessa wasn’t feeling well, Dixie told her it sounded like she was pregnant. Sure enough, she learned Dixie was right, “and was the first person to know,” said Tessa, who is expecting her first child in January.
The director, Keith Baxter, instructed Dixie not to cry during the performance. “She has such a big heart and she’s so emotional that during rehearsals she’d well up with tears and we’d have to stop,” Tessa said. “Dixie cares so much about the theater and the work. She has an unbelievable sense of humor, and she never takes herself too seriously.”
… And the ‘sincere’ Dixie
David Sabin, who plays Lord Augustus Lorton opposite Dixie, says, “She’s beautiful.” The actor, in her mid-60s, admits to a face lift 20 years ago, working out regularly on a treadmill, doing yoga and “not eating everything I want” to maintain her shapely figure.
Sabin credits himself with the line he says the late George Burns stole from him. To answer the question: “What is the secret of acting?” Burns replied: “Sincerity. If you need to fake that, you haven’t made it.” We agreed that no one is more sincere than Dixie, both onstage and off.
No stilted talk
“The writing is profound,” Dixie told me over a late dinner at the opening night cast party at Zaytinya, Monday evening, where she looked stunning in a white pants suit. But she also spoke of the challenges of the language: “We live in a very different time now, so this is not the way we talk now,” she explains. “It’s worth doing because of its relevance, beauty, profound wisdom; it’s both profoundly funny and profoundly sad. The challenge is to make the language come out naturally.”
Spousal advice
Dixie’s husband, Hal Holbrook, whose right foot was in a soft cast to ease the pain of “hurt tendons,” was in from New York, since his own Broadway revival, “Mark Twain Tonight!” was dark that evening. Holbrook – who played the shadowy “Deep Throat” in “All the President’s Men,” – and his wife are one another’s best supporters and critics as well. He told her during rehearsals that “she should let her own self get into the role more.”
Now, Dixie says, “I go inside and get more of myself.”
On opening night, Holbrook agreed that his wife had followed his advice. As Oscar Wilde wrote: “The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on.”
She interrupted for a moment offering her advice to Holbrook: “Put that [olives and humus] inside [the pita bread].” He told me the best advice she gave him before he opened his one-man show on Broadway this spring was, “Just remember, if you don’t get a laugh where you want it, no one will ever know.” Holbrook says he doesn’t feel like he’s doing a one-man show. “It’s the audience and the person on stage; the audience is the other actor.”
Dixie makes every theater home
Carter says she’s “bowled over” that the 500-seat performing arts center bearing her name in Huntingdon, Tenn., opens in December. She says, “It’s very humbling” that the center is being built in Huntingdon – the home of Davy Crockett – the town where she went to high school with the current Mayor Dale Kelley. She looks forward to performing at The Dixie.
Dixie – a fan of D.C.
And Washington audiences – you will be pleased to know that Dixie finds you “very generous and pro-theater.” She adds, “The energy is in the theater when you go on stage. That’s what I get from these audiences.” She’ll be playing at the Shakespeare Theatre in D.C. through July.