Before the current movement to empower those who have been sexually assaulted, it seems to me Alfred Hitchcock’s treachery was exposed by numerous venues. Two biographical films and expose’s by Tippi Hedren (abused during filming of The Birds) and Donald Spoto’s The Dark Side of Genius, revealed Hitchcock’s nastier side when it came to exploiting those under contract to him. Sadly, the phenomenon of indulging the despicable behavior of geniuses is nothing new. We can include Picasso, Fassbinder, Jon Huston and Woody Allen to name but a few.
Terry Johnson’s Hitchcock Blonde is set in 1959 and 1999, exploring three connections: between Janet Leigh’s body-double for Pyscho (“Blonde”) and Hitchcock, Blonde’s relationship with her violent husband, and in 1999: an undergrad named Nicola and her mentor/professor, Alex. The three are presented in parallel, suggesting similarities between the erudite (if somewhat oafish) Hitchcock, the relaxed film professor, and the troglodyte Husband. Ironically, Johnson depicts these three men as ultimately pathetic, preferring predation to actual lovemaking and resorting to lame scenarios to trap their objects of desire. We might even speculate that Johnson is working from Freud’s paradigm: Alex (Super Ego) Hitchcock (Ego) and Husband (Id).
In 1959 we see Hitchcock gradually seducing Blonde, in his quirky, indirect way. He plies her with sumptuous meals and works up the courage to suggest they film something like a screen test, requiring that she be nude. We also hear an ongoing monologue in which she describes to her husband, the strange experience of being naked in front of so many crew members for days on end, during the filming of Hitchcock’s notorious shower scene. There’s a sense that she is reflecting on her epiphany as a sexual being but also antagonizing Husband’s languid libido.
In 1999 Nicola and Alex take a sunny holiday in Greece, while examining mysterious, unlabeled cans of footage by Hitchcock himself, so degraded they must often deal with scraps. While trying to unravel this murky narrative, Alex persistently tries to convince Nicola they should become lovers. Nicola is intelligent but has emerged from humbler beginnings than Alex. By design or accident she is a brunette, though part of the revelation is Hitchcock’s obsession with the archetypal Blonde, as an exquisite, unattainable, icy empress. Not surprisingly, after Alex has overcome Nicola’s resistance (through shameless chicanery) he is no longer interested.
Kudos to the Benjamin Lutz (Director) the cast (Robert Bradford Smith, Nikki Cloer, DR Mann Hanson, Kayli Hessler and Jeff Burleson) and crew of Hitchcock Blonde for taking on this intriguing, complicated, sharp and profoundly disturbing drama of leverage, subjugation and defiance. On the surface it may feel strange and lurid, but there is depth, boldness, sly wit and electrifying insight here. We become so submerged and intoxicated by the rhythms of raw desire and sexual imperative, it’s only by processing after the fact we comprehend the grotesque power of objectification. This is theatre of the brilliant, broken, pathological mind. Go see it.
Giant Entertainment presents Hitchcock Blonde, playing March 8th-24th, 2018. Frank’s Place (Black Box) Kalita Humphreys, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd, Dallas, Texas, 75204. (855) 855-6777. www.giantentertainment.org