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Regional Reviews: Washington, D.C. Biography Also see Susan's review of Becky Shaw
In late 1931, Marion Froude (Hopkins) is a successful portrait painter; her subjects range from U.S. industrialists and movie stars to leaders of the Soviet Communist Party. However, since there's a Great Depression going on, she isn't getting as many commissions as in the past, so her finances are tight. When a firebrand magazine editor (Daniel Corey) offers her a large check to write her memoirs for publication, she agrees—and then the question becomes how much she wants to share about the people in her life. (Public scandals existed long before the Internet.) Marion is the center of the drama, but she also shifts like a pendulum under the influences of two very different men. The editor, Richard Kurt, is 25, a radical who wants to tear down society and begin from scratch. In contrast, Leander Nolan (Jon Townson) loved Marion when they were teenagers back in Tennessee but can't step out of his strict views on human behavior—especially now that he's running for the U.S. Senate. Hopkins has an enormous challenge with this role: Marion is magnetic but also manipulative, self-centered on occasion but trying to balance the feelings of those around her, and never ashamed of herself for enjoying life. She manages to carry it off admirably, all the while wearing Alison Samantha Johnson's chic costumes. Townson has a pleasant, low-key Jimmy Stewart quality, while Corey is fine if a little too well-appointed: would a herald of the proletariat wear such nice suits? Interestingly, Marion's soul mate is not either of the love interests, but Melchior Feydak (Craig Miller), a world-weary Hungarian composer who lives in the shadow of his late brother, a more successful composer. Of all the people Marion knows, Feydak seems to be the only one with whom she can be totally herself. American Century Theater
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