Jesse Tyler Ferguson Zings ‘Tru’ as Capote in a Poignant Revival

The late Philip Seymour Hoffman gave many great stage and screen performances, but one of his most memorable was in the 2005 film “Capote.” While capturing the high-pitched voice and mincing mannerisms that made Truman Capote ripe for impersonation, Hoffman delivered a portrait that transcended caricature, conveying the author’s inner conflict as he crafted “In Cold Blood,” the 1966 masterwork often credited as the first non-fiction novel.In 1990, sixteen years before Hoffman won an Oscar for that movie, Robert Morse earned a Tony Award playing Capote during a rather less celebrated chapter of his career, in “Tru.” That play, by Jay Presson Allen—previously known for her screenplays for “Cabaret” and “Prince of the City”—was set in December 1975, when Capote, then 51, had recently alienated many of his high society pals by dishing dirt on women who were prominent among them.“Answered Prayers,” as the unfinished, tell-all book was to be called, created a scandal when excerpts were published in Esquire magazine. Television producer Ryan Murphy, that connoisseur of all things glossy and creepy, revisited this period just a few years ago in a season of his anthology series “Feud” titled “Capote vs. The Swans”—the Swans being the well-heeled ladies Capote collected as confidantes and then betrayed, among them Lee Radziwill, Babe Paley, and Slim Keith.I didn’t see “Tru” during its original (and only) Broadway run, so I was eager to catch the off-Broadway revival that just opened — not only because its star, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, seemed a clever choice, but because of the venue: the House of the Redeemer, originally owned by a great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt and a landmark of the city that became the New Orleans-born, Alabama-bred Capote’s home of choice.Scenic decorator and properties designer Mike Harrison has turned the mansion’s library into a resplendent vision of the author’s apartment in the United Nation Plaza. Packed bookcases still line two floors, while on the lower level, where most of the action takes place, a Christmas tree and colorful lamps glitter among mementos nodding to both Capote’s background and his literary and social stature: art, photos, copies of The New Yorker, a piano scattered with sheet music.Audience members sit at elegant tables and on handsome sofas, in close proximity to Mr. Ferguson, who makes his entrance in a trenchcoat and a panama hat, one of Capote’s signatures, as a Louis Armstrong recording plays. Sam Spector’s costume design provides other hallmarks of the author’s sartorial style, from fine sweaters to bowties and a full tuxedo.The tux is worn in a scene invoking the Black and White Ball held at the Plaza Hotel in 1966, where Capote, at the height of his power, hosted a who’s who of show business, media, and political players, all dressed in masquerade attire. Director Rob Ashford first nods to that event early in “Tru,” when a woman glides, swan-like, through the crowd, clad in a black gown and white mask.Charlotte d’Amboise in ‘Tru.’ Marc J. FranklinThis mysterious creature, a canny addition on Mr. Ashford’s part, is played by Charlotte d’Amboise, an accomplished dancer and actress. She is present, albeit mostly silent, throughout the production, observing our host or sweeping ominously across the room, sometimes suggesting particular women in Capote’s life. At least once or twice, she seems to be Paley; in a segment where she does speak, she’s a witch-like figure from the author’s childhood, tormenting him.Mr. Ferguson has recruited some famous female friends of his own to provide voices we hear on Capote’s answering machine: Kristin Chenoweth, Jane Krakowski, and Sandra Oh. Of course, the success of this staging rests largely on his own star power, and his and Mr. Ashford’s ability to make Allen’s script — a workmanlike summation of its subject’s trials, triumphs, and self-destructive excesses, often witty but also voyeuristic—accessible and moving.Happily, the actor and his director prove capable. Mr. Ferguson is at once charismatic and poignant, evoking the diminutive Capote’s outsize persona and the haunted man underneath. At one point in the preview I saw, the actor fixed his gaze on a handsome young fellow in the audience — Capote was openly gay — and purred, “I’ve always said that if you decide you want somebody… and you concentrate exclusively, you will probably get that person. That has been my experience.”Capote’s experience was, of course, a lot more complicated than that bit of reassurance suggests. If “Tru” remains an imperfect play, it reminds us of this and makes a splendid vehicle for the range of talent on display in this intimate, eye-catching production.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson Zings ‘Tru’ as Capote in a Poignant Revival

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