Doing Time with Lavinia was reviewed at C ARTS, C venues, C aquila.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Lavinia is a hot mess. Thrown unceremoniously into a holding cell, drunk, barely capable, like a third-rate Grizabella with no hope of reaching the Heaviside Layer, railing against a system designed not to do her any favours, she responds by dribbling her first song into the floor.
What is going on?
Well, what’s going on is an hour with a master storyteller. The character may be third-rate, but the performance by Susan Campanaro is absolutely top drawer. I’ve never seen better drunk acting; and here’s the thing – it never looks like acting. Campanaro disappears and the entire tortured tale is told by Lavinia Draper, ex-model, ex-actress, ex-prostitute… expertly.
So how did she end up here? We meet her influences; the parents encouraging a barely pubescent Lavinia to enter beauty pageants, the useless agent, “a jackal with pinkie rings”, who picks her up and drops her when she’s no longer convenient. And others, all beautifully interpreted by Campanaro through Lavinia’s lens.
She’s self-deprecatingly hilarious and tragic, but she never gives up. “Too old to be young, too young to be old,” she lives by the three Ps: “presentation, presence and pizzazz.” And boy, does she have pizzazz.
The songs, by Lynn Portas, are terrific. Great tunes, brilliant lyrics. They flow seamlessly in and out of the monologue. From torch song to tender. Lavinia may have lost it, but Campanaro is in complete control, steering us to exactly where she needs us to be to feel the joy, pain, frustration and resolve that this awesome woman experiences daily. She sings her heart out; almost comatose on the floor or doing a full keep-fit routine or snorting coke – hilarious.
It’s like ‘I’m Still Here’ has come to life in IMAX. ‘Reefers and vino, rest cures, religion and pills’ – she’s done it all – ‘and my dear…’
If she makes bail and she’s released, you hope she’ll sort herself out. But most likely, she’ll go straight to the nearest bar and drink her way back to sobriety by sunrise.
Lavinia and Campanaro ‘run the gamut, A to Z’, and for that, we love them both.
Steven Wren
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