Looped Scribe Matthew Lombardo on Loving Leading Ladies
About the author:
Playwright Matthew Lombardo has been professionally obsessed with great ladies for a long time. The scribe enjoyed success with his Katharine Hepburn bio-play, Tea at Five, starring Kate Mulgrew, which premiered at Hartford Stage and then played off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre. Now Lombardo is making his Broadway debut with Looped. The show is another play based on a real-life actress: Tallulah Bankhead, the original Hollywood bad girl (as portrayed by the warm and wonderful Valerie Harper). Playing at the Lyceum Theatre, Looped officially opens on March 14. Lombardo, who is also a director and award-winning TV writer, is working on creating a trifecta of strong female roles with his new play High, which will star Kathleen Turner. What’s up with Lombardo’s fascination with strong women? Here, he explains it all for you.
People often ask me why my leading characters are mostly written for “women of a certain age”—as if to imply I should be writing more roles for younger men. But considering Hollywood throws an actress her funeral when she turns 40 (whether she is actually dead or not) and the majority of new Broadway plays this season are vehicles for leading males—I think I’m justified in defending the evident need of more stage roles for mature women.
Now granted, I’m a mama’s boy from way back when. Being born the last Italian son in a family of five with a domineering mother and three strong-willed older sisters predisposes me to appreciate (if not fear) the strong female temperament. You see, my grandmother gave birth to 13 children all within a 19 year time span (God bless her uterus). So from my very first Gerber burp, I was surrounded by some pretty fascinating ladies.
Perhaps what I find most intriguing about the feminine spirit is its indomitable tolerance for pain and suffering. Last year, my 79-year-old mother had shoulder replacement surgery. She came home from the hospital the very next day and not only refused to take any pain pills but insisted on making her own breakfast with one hand—and not once did she complain. It’s those simple every day snapshots of life that continue to amaze, humor, confuse and fascinate me. But most of all, they collectively inspire me in the creation of hopefully well-structured female protagonists.
Let’s face it: we all love nothing more than to see a great actress create an unforgettable role. Those theatrical memories live in our minds forever: Julie Harris in The Belle of Amherst. Zoe Caldwell in Master Class. Cherry Jones in Doubt. There is something so magical about sitting in the theater and knowing you are experiencing a performance you will remember for the rest of your life. And that’s the kind of creative coupling I attempt to accomplish when marrying an actress to character.
When I was working on my first draft of Tea at Five, I was writing the play exclusively for Kate Mulgrew. Granted, she knew nothing about my aspirations. But I knew if I could entice her with the daunting challenge of solely commanding the stage and portraying Katharine Hepburn at two critical stages in her life, her participation would be all but certain. Well. That and my showing up at her home for the first time on bended knee with 50 calla lilies in hand. To which Mulgrew replied: “Oh, for Christ’s sake. I’ll do your play. Get up off the floor.”
Mulgrew’s likeness to The Great Kate and her natural Hepburnian temperament was so uncanny that the casting was really a no-brainer. The opposite, however, was true when searching for my Tallulah Bankhead. You see, I knew I had to find someone who not only had world-class comic timing but also carried buckets of stage presence upon arrival. And Valerie Harper is one of those rare actresses that possess both of those qualities in spades.
What makes Val’s performance as Tallulah so extraordinary is that Bankhead’s temperament is in complete contrast with Harper’s loving and nurturing Earth Mother. On any given night, one can find Val scrubbing the other actors’ dressing room sinks or setting out a tray of home-baked cookies for the crew before a performance. It’s truly astonishing how effortlessly she morphs into the bourbon-drinking, F-bomb hurling, cocaine-snorting Tallulah—which is a distinct cry from her authentic state. Wildly impressive work.
So what’s up next after Looped opens on Broadway? Well, after having dabbled in the Hollywood Female Icon genre for shamefully longer than expected, I was eager to create an entirely new character for my next play: a strong-willed, tough-talking recovering alcoholic nun who is sent a 19-year-old heroin addict whom she attempts to get clean and help find God. The play is titled High and stars the phenomenal Kathleen Turner as Sister Jamison Connolly. The production will have its world premiere this summer.
My philosophy has always been that if I create great characters for women then I will attract great women to play my characters. And with Mulgrew, Harper and Turner speaking my words—what I’m writing seems to be working.
