GARDEN OF ALLA: THE ALLA NAZIMOVA STORY

I’m a big fan of Hollywood history. So the subject of this play at Theatre West—1920s Broadway and silent movie star Alla Nazimova—is fascinating. But some of the execution of it, not so much.

I rarely choose to see one-person shows, but Garden of Alla: The Alla Nazimova Story looked very promising, so I was left a tad disappointed on opening night. But just that tad; the show is a yin-and-yang one.

Photo by Lorca Peress, of a previous production of the show.

At only eighty-three minutes, the production is short. But it would be half that time if the actress-writer, Romy Nordlinger, would not stop at every period in the script! That’s Acting 101; no one talks like that in real life. She really needs to add in a comma every now and then.

Still, I could tell that she’s a good actress because, in character, she does a minute or two of a monologue from The Cherry Orchard toward the end of Garden of Alla, and that one bit is excellent.

But otherwise, my friend Lou and I didn’t know what she was talking about half the time. And Alla Nazimova grew up Jewish in Russia, then lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she learned to speak English in just six months before becoming a stage actress in New York. So we can’t understand why, instead of using that proper accent, even a modified-for-stage one, Romy portrays Alla as having some kind of “American-British socialite” speech. It’s a head-scratching (and annoying) choice.

Photo by David Wayne Fox, as is the one at the top of this review.

Nordlinger wrote the script herself, so perhaps Garden of Alla would benefit from an outside eye helping to fix some of the issues with it. For example, the long section about her being born and growing up are super-confusing; Lou and I had no idea what was going on. At one point, she said that, as a child, she came home one day to find her mother gone, and then a minute or two later, she was saying something about her mother being at an event with her. We could not figure out what any of that is about.

But it does pick-up about halfway through, when Alla comes to America, although I would have liked to learn why and how she came here. (Perhaps those answers are in the narrative, but if that’s the case, it’s muddled; she needs to punch those lines up, since that journey is why anyone knows about Alla Nazimova to begin with.)

All that being said, there are several positives to this limited-run presentation. The best part of the entire production is the fabulous projections and videos by Adam Jesse Burns. And very cleverly, a long clip of one of Nazimova’s silent films plays on the big-screen backdrop pre-show. So I suggest getting to your seats early to see that specialness.

The pre-show silent movie clips. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I adored that, on opening night, all the theatre personnel were dressed in ‘20s-style fashions. There were many beautiful dresses, and all the females were rocking at least long pearls. The lobby display continued the theme. I always appreciate touches like that.  It gets the audience in the right mood from the get-go.

Just receiving the invitation to Garden of Alla inspired me to research Alla Nazimova, which I suggest you do before you see the show, as well. Her entire story is intriguing. I was shocked that I had never heard of her before, but when I saw the tagline for this play, “The most famous star you’ve never heard of,” I felt not so alone in my nescience.

The informative board in the lobby. Photo by Karen Salkin.

Alla Nazimova was known not only as a movie and Broadway star, but the person who bought a giant estate on Sunset Boulevard at Crescent Heights in Los Angeles, and turned it into the historic “Garden of Allah,” first as her happening home and later as a historic hotel. So I appreciated hearing tales of that famous place in this play.

On a side note, I’m grateful that one of the very end images of Garden of Alla cleared that location of the hotel up for me. I hadn’t realized that it had become a strip mall which I had been to many a time in recent years, for the drive-thru McDonald’s and the bank. Mr. X and I drove past there the other day, and were shocked to discover that it had recently all been torn down. Again. Maybe they’ll build another beautiful hotel on the site now. Wouldn’t that be nice!

The story of Alla Nazimova’s life is definitely one worth telling. And seeing! So all in all, if you’d like an easy and interesting night out, Garden of Alla will offer you that. And for your convenience, there are many eateries in the area, even one that appeared to also be a happening bar on the same block. And if you’ve been wanting to use your flapper-era attire outside of the once-a-year-at-Halloween that you bring it out for, go for it. Just bring your fur coat, too, because the air-conditioning in that theatre is bone-chilling!

Garden of Alla: The Alla Nazimova Story running through July 23, 2023
Theatre West  3333 Cahuenga Blvd.
www.theatrewest.org  323-851-7977