By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
photo by Tim Fuller
Dr. Ruth (Susan Claassen) invites the audience into her Manhattan apartment for a little reminiscing.
How can such powerful brain chemistry be activated by the mere mention of Invisible Theatre's own Managing Artistic Director Susan Claassen doing a one-woman show portraying celebrity sex therapist Dr. Ruth?
So powerful, indeed, that when Invisible Theatre announced it would produce such a show, tickets sold so fast additional performances were added before the show even opened!
It won't surprise anyone if the run gets extended further at IT's theater because, on the opening night of “Becoming Dr. Ruth,” Claassen's performance as a cast of one was absolutely brilliant.
She wasn't just acting like she was the colorful sex therapist, she became Dr. Ruth, the diminutive warrior in red-framed glasses dedicated to the importance of education...regardless of the subject.
The playbill credits Annette Hillman and Fred Rodriguez as co-directors.
To discover how such an openly curious and candid person can be created out of so much good old-fashioned cheerfulness in dreadful times, playwright Mark St. Germain carries us down deep through all the layers of disappointment and determination she endured, straight to the 1930s childhood of Karola Ruth Siegel, a German girl of Jewish faith living in Frankfurt with her parents and grandparents.
Thus, the first three-fourths of “Becoming Dr. Ruth” becomes a fascinating series of scenes and descriptions from those complex times as felt through the eyes of a young person enduring the social pressures of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the isolation of Germany's Jewish community and the destruction of World War II, followed by the political Cold War, society's re-structuring and the creation of Israel in 1948.
But history is just the backdrop. Cleverly the playwright has created an album of short scenes as the child grew into an independent young woman who learned early the power of education and the nourishment of a positive attitude.
Claassen navigates this landscape with subtly evolving body language and European accents that begin with her early family life in Frankfurt, included Hebrew when she moved to the new nation of Israel in 1948 and served in the military, added French when she studied and taught in Paris in the 1950s, and then after moving to the United States in 1956 learned American English by constantly reading True Confessions magazine.
There were two constants in all this. The first was her desire to keep getting more education (and winning more scholarships). The second was her belief from an early age that – just like her favorite movie star Shirley Temple – she could always cheer up anyone's spirits.
The genius of St. Germain's play and Claassen's performance is that right before our eyes we watch as the Jewish child Karola in horrifying times transforms and grows into the young European woman who would later become, at age 52 in 1980, the nation's most entertaining grandmother and explicit educator on the traditionally forbidden subject of sex.
At one point Dr. Ruth assures us her attitudes toward sex are very old-fashioned. From the beginning of her midnight radio show on New York station WYNY she wanted nothing to do with questions about sexual perversity or bestiality (“I'm not a veterinarian,” she quiped).
While this stage portrait does include some genuinely funny quotes from Dr. Ruth's unique handling of sex advice, “Becoming Dr. Ruth” is exactly what the title implies.
It isn't so much about sex. It is definitely very much about having the courage to keep sticking your neck out, no matter what.
The show runs through Saturday, Feb. 29, with evening performances at 7:30 p.m., weekend matinees at 3 p.m., in the Invisible Theatre, 1400 N. First Ave.
Reservations are a must. Tickets are $35, with group discounts available. For additional details and reservations, 520-882-9721, or visit invisibletheatre.com
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