My "Breakfast at Tiffany's" Conundrum

I've never really understood why "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is as beloved as it is. Yes, Audrey Hepburn is her most incandescent and stylish, and yes, her Holly Golightly has become an icon. I also like the cat. A lot. And the view of New York and Tiffany's in 1961.

But the movie is so brittle, with its depiction of fashionable 60s "cafe society," and the people are so morally ambigious. Ambiguous is charitable, really, since both Holly and "Fred" (his name is really Paul, even though she calls him Fred) are paid for their company by richer, older "patrons." Holly seems to keep financially afloat based on fifty-dollar powder-room tips proffered by men in nightclubs, while Paul gets an apartment and a lot of nice suits in return for keeping company with a wealthy woman called 2-E. Holly hosts wild parties and tries to latch onto sugar daddies, while Paul attempts to break his writer's block on a typewriter without a ribbon. I guess it's supposed to be sophisticated and daring, but their lives strike me, when watching "Breakfast at Tiffany's," as more sordid than sophisticated, more empty than fizzy or fun. One of the men who advises Holly, an imprisoned gangster named Sally Tomato, says as much when he looks over the little notebook in which she keeps track of her finances. "This is a book would break the heart," Sally says. I'm with Sally.

I'm not even going to discuss the horrific performance by Mickey Rooney as Holly's much-beleaguered upstairs neighbor, a Japanese man named Mr. Yunioshi. It's so racist and appalling there's just nothing to say. You can hold your nose or hide your eyes when he's on screen. Or maybe they can photoshop a different neighbor into some future edition of "Breakfast at Tiffany's." We can only hope.

Screenwriter George Axelrod and director Blake Edwards changed quite a bit from the Truman Capote novella, most notably turning the unnamed narrator into a straight romantic match for Holly, and giving it a semi-happy ending. At least they saved the cat this way. (Yes, I admit it -- the cat is the one I want to live happily ever after.)

Still, Hepburn does a beautiful job hinting at the vulnerability, fragility and depth under Holly's shallow exterior, and George Peppard is fine as her straight man (pun intended). Also on the plus side -- they both look fabulous (her gowns were by Givenchy, while his wardrobe was done by Edith Head, and co-star Patricia Neal got Pauline Trigere outfits that are pretty nifty, too) and it's refreshing to see Audrey paired up with someone age-appropriate. Plus, you know, I love the cat.

But there's just something so melancholy about this movie, even with the Hollywoodized ending. It's not just the influence of "Moon River," either. Henry Mancini's Oscar-winning song does make you want to cry, but that seems like true emotion. It's real phony, as one of Holly's friends would say. The problem for me is the plain old phony phony parts, like Holly's party where a drunk guest takes a header and somebody almost sets the cat on fire, the bizarre idea that Audrey Hepburn could ever be believable as someone who grew up dirt-poor in Tulip, Texas and got married to Buddy Ebsen at 14, or the "Breakfast at Tiffany's" song in the score, with its cheesy, swoopy, plastic chorus, or poor Mickey Rooney doing racist slapstick upstairs. But I promised I wouldn't discuss that, didn't I?

Oh well. That's why "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is a tough call for me. My romantic heart wants to buy into the idea that a shallow celebutante could really be Audrey Hepburn inside, that she could fall in love and realize that Cracker Jack prizes are just as good as a Givenchy wardrobe, that the cat and man you love should be held onto and treated properly, not just tossed out the door of a cab in the rain... I want to believe it. I just can't quite make it over the threshold of disbelief.

I invite you to see "Breakfast at Tiffany's" yourself, playing tonight and tomorrow night at the Normal Theatre, and let me know if you think I'm being too nice, too mean, or somewhere in between.

February Fever!

February is a great month to shake off the dust and expand your mind with a play, a movie, a book... Something!

This month, I'm recommending SOUTHERN COMFORTS, by Kathleen Clark, playing at Heartland Theatre from February 18 to March 7th. Heartland calls it a "tour-de-force journey of a widow and widower who meet later in life and find a way into each other’s hearts." SOUTHERN COMFORTS stars two terrific local actors -- Carol Scott and Michael Pullin -- as the widow and widower, and is directed by Heartland Artistic Director Mike Dobbins. I'll write a full review once it opens, so come back and look for that!

One other reminder about Heartland -- the annual 10-minute Play competition closed on February 1, but Heartland's New Plays from the Heartland competition for one-act plays is open till March 15th. You can see details at Heartland's website, linked at left.

On other area stages, you can catch the Greek classic LYSISTRATA, about women who withhold sex to put an end to war, at Illinois Wesleyan, running February 16-21, or two very different plays at ISU. ISU is offering DON JUAN COMES BACK FROM THE WAR, by Ödön von Horvath, at ISU's Westhoff Theatre February 17-21, and Tennessee Williams' A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE at the Center for the Performing Arts from the 18th through the 27th.

This DON JUAN is, like LYSISTRATA, about war and love. Set after World War I, the play looks at what happens when Don Juan decides to look for his lost love in a landscape of bitter cold and terrible post-war deprivation. Everything has changed; nothing has changed. What's a Don Juan to do?

STREETCAR is more familiar to American audiences, and it's always intriguing to see what a college-age cast can do with such iconic characters as Blanche DuBois, the faded Southern belle in search of softer lighting, and Stanley Kowalski, the rough-and-tumble man's man symbolized by the raw slab of meat he brings home to his wife. Even after all these years and a whole lot of productions, STREETCAR is still a fascinating play.

Also on my must-see list for February is the mini-Audrey Hepburn festival at the Normal Theater, with one of my favorites, SABRINA, playing on the 11th and 12th, and BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S on the 13th and 14th. Either movie could work nicely for your Valentine's celebrations and I'll try to review them both before they hit the screen.

At the bookstore, you'll find a sure-fire way to heat up your winter in Jess Michaels' NOTHING DENIED, where a Regency-era shrew is unleashed more than tamed. The book is available right now from Avon's Red line (its spicier, sexier imprint), and I'll be posting a full review a bit later in the month. (FYI: Jess Michaels is one of local author Jenna Petersen's alter egos.)