Review: Full Gallop

The real Diana Vreeland loved being under the spotlight and to hold court. In her old age she talked slow, so you really had no choice but to hang on her every word. In her column for Harper’s Bazaar, where she served as the fashion editor, she loved giving outrageous suggestions, like “why don’t you…wash your blond child’s hair in dead champagne?”

She was excessive. There was no stopping her imagination, and her spending. The latter ultimately led to her unceremonious firing as the editor of American Vogue at the age of 68 after just nine years of service.

It is this Vreeland whom we meet in Full Gallop, a one-woman play originally staged as on off-Broadway production in 1995. The Manila production is directed by Bart Guingona and stars Cherie Gil, who has had her fair share of playing luxurious and excessive contravida characters in Tagalog movies.

Vreeland has just returned from a six-week holiday in Europe following her termination — in contrast, when her former Harper’s Bazaar editor, Carmel Snow, lost her job, she jumped to her death — and is busy preparing dinner with a potential financial backer.

By “preparing” we don’t mean sweating over a cooking range. She has her French maid, Yvonne (voiced by Giselle Toengi), to worry about that. For Madame is not a domesticated goddess, she doesn’t even know where her kitchen is and is genuinely shocked to find out that it’s all white.

In her elegant room, which is marked by a thick red curtain hanging from the high ceiling, red walls, red couch and a chair covered in a confounding red fabric (“so Vionnet”), she takes phone calls, gives instructions to the maid through an intercom, and accessorizes the room with six vases overflowing with flowers (which she asks her maid to spring for because she only has $2 in her bag). If you thought her living room could not look any more sumptuous, you should watch Vreeland amp it up with flowers.

The phone calls are from friends alerting her about a gossip item in the New York Post about her return from Europe and how her loyal friends are scrambling to find her a job. She reads it in piecemeal, entertaining the audience in between with tales from her adventures and pronouncements like “navy blue is the pink of India.”

There is also an offer from the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum (“Why is everyone trying it put me in a museum,” she quips), which she at first declines. As the play progresses, she slowly realizes that the clout she used to enjoy as a magazine editor is dissipating. One of her dinner guests leaves for Istanbul without telling her, her florist starts charging her, and her go-to restaurant declines to give her a hamper of goodies. Her son asks her to move to California because she can’t afford her New York apartment now that she’s jobless.

Is she becoming irrelevant? Or is it, as the New York Post suggests, the end of an era? Her era.

Fans of society pages and the world of fashion will enjoy this play about the visionary that is Vreeland, whose ideas were so wildly original that, until now, the best editors and stylists still reference her.

Cherie Gil is a gem and played the role almost perfectly, down to the perfectly placed hand on the right hip, which is how the fashion editor appears in many photographs. She is also an elegant presence on stage, especially when she dances a tango on her own and recounts having Coco Chanel for dinner.

To be sure, this is a challenging role to play, with endless lines and no other actor to share the stage with. We only wish Gil spoke more languidly and acted more excessively, with a hint of crazy, to enthrall the audience even more.

The script, by Mark Hampton and Mary Louise Wilson, is snappy and manages to turn Vreeland’s ramblings and non-sequiturs into entertaining quips. Though you don’t need to be a fashionista to appreciate Diana Vreeland’s story, it is sheer joy to those who are, as we witnessed during the preview night for media attended by lifestyle reporters and editors.

But if there’s anything that people will be talking about long after the curtain has dropped, it is the set design of Joey Mendoza, which was so exquisite it’s worth its own story.

The takeaway from this play, which Guingona does not overemphasize but instead leaves the thinking audience to discover after the show, is how Vreeland, who is depicted as an impenetrable strong-willed character in most stories written about her, is captured at a rare point in her life when she felt vulnerable. Despite appearing to be above mundane daily concerns such as paying bills and making rent, she has cunning and a strong survival instinct, as viewers will find out at the end of the play.

Catch Full Gallop on Mar 14, 15, 21, and 23. Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, 4/F RCBC Plaza, Ayala Ave., cor Gil Puyat Ave., Makati City.Ticketworld.com.ph Tickets start at PHP625.



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