A `Tale' For One Actor -- Everett Quinton Puts His Own Spin On Dickens' Classic

A literary masterwork high on everyone's high school reading list.

A 1930s Hollywood movie epic starring Ronald Colman.

A squalling baby left on a doorstep.

And one addled actor, trying frantically to calm this foundling infant by acting out assorted scenes from the French Revolution.

These are the major ingredients of Everett Quinton's "A Tale of Two Cities," a play for one highly energetic actor based on the Charles Dickens tome of the same title.

Quinton, an actor-director at the helm of New York's fabled Ridiculous Theatre, originally wrote the piece for himself. At New City Theater, however, a brave local drag performer named Mark Finley is taking up the triathlon challenge of introducing it to Seattle. The production, directed and designed by John Kerr, runs at New City through Oct. 8.

`A practical decision'

Reached by telephone in New York, where he is playing Puck in a Ridiculous Theatre adaptation of "Midsummer Night's Dream," Quinton recalled what motivated him to turn "A Tale of Two Cities" into a solo extravaganza.

"I always loved the book, but this was a practical decision," he admitted. "I was directing an old play by Charles Ludlam, `The Isle of the Hermaphrodites,' for our company, and I could see it was going to bomb. So I pulled it, but had no money for a replacement.

"I asked our lighting designer, what if we did `Tale of Two Cities'? He said, `But it's not funny.' And I said, `What if I do the whole thing myself?' "

Quinton's brainstorm led to a hit 1989 run that kept the Ridiculous Theatre afloat during a rough transition period. Ludlam, the troupe's founder and charismatic resident playwright-star-director, had recently died of AIDS. Quinton, Ludlam's life partner and co-star in such hit satirical travesties as "Irma Vep," took over the company, but its future looked uncertain.

Quinton is now putting his own spin on Ludlam's unique blend of stage transvestitism, gay pride, and erudite cultural satire. "When Charles came onto the theater scene, people started to break away from dismissing gays," he reflected.

"Did you know it was illegal to do drag in New York in the 1950s? It was an arrestable offense. But suddenly, here was this gay theater with men and women who really stood up for themselves, and were taken seriously by the critics."

Ludlam was perhaps best known for his mesmerizing grande dame turns: as Camille, Maria Callas, Hedda Gabler. "He took drag a step further by creating these incredible woman characters," Quinton says.

"When Charles and I played women, we didn't judge them, or glorify men at the expense of women. But all the women we've played are comic characters, because the Ridiculous is a comic theater."

Finley a logical choice

"A Tale of Two Cities," Quinton notes, is based as much on the panoramic 1935 MGM movie adaptation as it is on Dickens' novel. And whoever performs it not only gets to play the Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone parts, but also "do" Edna May Oliver and Flora Robson.

Based on his theatrical credits, Mark Finley seemed a logical Seattle choice for the assignment.

Recognized for his over-the-top solo cabaret shows ("Knockin' 'Em Dead at the Limbo Lounge") and riotous impersonation of Bette Davis in a fringe version of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane," Finley knows his way around high heels and falsies. He's also a big fan of the Ridiculous Theatre's work, and an old friend of Quinton's.

But Finley acknowledges that the lightning quick changes of character and costume (ranging from a Froot Loops box to frilly bonnets and hooped skirts), in "Tale of Two Cities" are a real challenge.

"I'm climbing Mount Everest every night," he reports. "I do 20 characters and 25 voices in 90 minutes. But it's not a big, crazy drag fest like `Limbo Lounge.' This is a real storytelling."

So what advice can the play's author and original star give Finley? "Get lots of rest, take your vitamins, and eat a big bowl of spaghetti at about 3 o'clock," Quinton said from New York.

But Finley has his own pre-show ritual. "I watch the movie every day," he confides, "and I always say the Tallulah Bankhead prayer before going on. It goes, `Please God, don't let me make a fool of myself!' "