Back Stage West

BACK STAGE WEST Dramalogue April 20, 2000

MIMI'S GUIDE
at the Fremont Centre Theatre
Reviewed by Madeleine Shaner

Every war collects its share of obsessives who can't shake bitter memories, half-remembered myths, and an eternal aftermath. Vietnam might top them all, in that it was a war that divided America into warring factions that still battle out its legacy 25 years later. Doris Baizley's Mimi's Guide rearranges a love triangle that was circumscribed by the war, and which permanently change the lives of three people.
Waterman (Michael Genovese), an esteemed poet, has been invited to give a seminar on his work at a university in Louisiana. He has managed to persuade Mimi (Lauren Letherer), his muse and one-time lover, to meet him at the writer's residence that has been provided for him. Mimi, a free spirit, has challenged the world on her own terms, traveling alone, seeing and doing everything. She is the inspiration, indeed the subject, for all Waterman's works. She's also been keeper and enabler for an obstreperous man who has lived up to his reputation, subbing for him at seminars, covering his profligate tracks, charming his public into adoration. Their host in Louisiana turns out to be young Vietnamese-American Robert Li (Ping Wu), an associate professor of literature at the university.
Old tides rise and old obsessions surface as the pages are turned back to Mimi's rejection of Waterman when he chose jail instead of service in 'Nam, and when her young lover, Watermans's friend, was killed there, possibly at My Lai.
The three fight the war all over again as Mimi and Robert (who, coincidentally, was born on

the day of her lover's death), are ineluctably drawn to each other, creating a new, mystical triangle that argues with geometry.
Passionate, poetic, sometimes pretentious, sometimes oblique, Baizley's play, apparently the second in an unfinished trilogy (My Rebel was the first), is tackled head on by a fine cast, spiritedly led by director Virginia Morris, who has tapped the reality within a slightly contrived plot that bends and curves through now and then and maybe, but leaves us with an uneasy feeling that we still haven't plumbed the surface of a very muddy river. Letherer is beyond perfect as the perfect woman-unjudgemental, a good companion, a fine mind, an endless inspiration, and with the enviable ability to allow her man to make a fool of himself when he needs to. Genovese is stroppy, rambunctious, and awesomely good as the fighting poet--Dylan Thomas meets Allen Ginsberg. Wu, while he seems an unlikely lover at first, is well in control of a potent sexuality born of intelligence.
Richard Scully's back porch of a slightly run-down Southern residence is delightfully authentic, and Brian Benison's original music and sound lends authenticity to a slightly nebulous play that doesn't really end. Maybe we have to wait another 10 years for the third play in the trilogy.

Mimi's Guide , presented by the Fremont Centre Theatre, in asssociation with Lissa & James Reynolds and ShapeShifter Productions, at the Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., S, Pasadena. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3:30 p.m. Apr. 6-May 14 $15. (626) 441-5977.

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