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Wednesday, February 19, 2003

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

O brave new world, that had ideals in it!

Imagine Feb. 4, 1946, when "Born Yesterday" opened on Broadway. On the one hand, ideals ran high after the democratizing experience of World War II, when everyone had pulled together for what they thought was the common good. On the other, triumphant America also had a new bully swagger, having saved the world for ... what? democracy or capitalism? And if the latter, what kind?

Michael Jansen as Harry Brock stands behind Michelle Weissgerber as Billie Dawn and Paul Pakler as journalist Paul Verrall in "Born Yesterday" at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. (Lighthouse Photography) "Born Yesterday" WHERE: Playhouse Conservatory Company (Point Park College students) at Pittsburgh Playhouse, 222 Craft Ave., Oakland. WHEN: 8 p.m. through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. TICKETS: $12-$14. 412-621-4445.

That's the background of Garson Kanin's hit comedy about Harry Brock and Billie Dawn, the self-made multimillionaire roughneck (back when a million was really a million) and his bimbo broad. Brock comes to Washington to buy a few senators and build an international scrap iron empire, but with the help of a liberal journalist, Billie discovers the ideals of "we the people."

She triumphs, since this is a comedy. The bad guys are routed. Of course Kanin couldn't peer into the immediate future and foretell Korea, Joe McCarthy, Charlie Wilson or the arms race, but I'll bet he knew the war between personal profit and the greater good would continue. And in our current climate of government by crony capitalism, "Born Yesterday" feels like a faint memory of an American idealism long ago discarded as unmanly.

In other words, the play itself could have been born yesterday, it feels that current.

But this is also the same lighthearted comic version of the Pygmalion story that has been a staple in community theaters since its four-year run on Broadway, when it needed only a $37,000 investment and made more than $1 million profit. It also made a star of the unknown Judy Holliday, who stepped in when Jean Arthur took sick during the Boston tryout, then starred (opposite Broderick Crawford and William Holden) in the 1951 movie.

If college productions spawned stars, this one would launch Michelle Weissgerber, a senior musical comedy major making her mainstage debut (why has it taken so long?). Her Billie comes on with a sourness that feels caricatured, but that sets up her transformation, which Weissgerber manages with charm, gradually letting us see the sensitive woman hidden inside the gaudy exterior. The precise mime plus chortles of her gin rummy game with Brock is a comic gem.

Obviously this has a lot to do with the direction by John Shepard, who indulges the production with many period details. That includes Edward Powers' solid set of an expensive Washington hotel suite (beautifully furnished, but shouldn't the decor be more over-the-top?), on which Shepard deploys more bellhops and flunkies than strictly necessary and finds good comic business for them all.

Brock is played by Michael Jansen -- the first non-musical this student has ever done, I'm told -- and though he can't supply the outrageous size and bluster needed, he works hard. What's mainly missing is the animal charm Brock should have, in spite of his crudity.

Paul Pakler plays Paul, the journalist, with sunny spunk. He and Billie make an improbable couple who turn out to be fun to root for. Scott Nelson never overplays the self-loathing of Brock's lawyer, and Halavah Sofsky stays in scale as his gofer cousin.

The purposefully cartoony nature of Kanin's optimistic fable is suggested by "Billie Dawn." It could almost be the name of an elegant stripper or at least of a discreet erotic image like the famous "September Morn." But "Dawn" also ties in with the Pygmalion myth -- Billie is reborn under Paul's tutelage, testifying to the redemptive power of Tom Paine and reformist journalism.

The play's title also reverberates. It starts with the familiar idiom: For all her apparent untutored innocence, Billie "wasn't born yesterday." But given her innocence, yes, she was, reborn into the true faith in American democracy. And in the glow of Kanin's post-war idealism, America seemed possibly reborn, as well -- reborn into participatory democracy and the death of government by bribery and big business.

Let's hope.