Review: “Saving Aimee” needs to be euthanized.

Aimee Semple McPherson (Carolee Carmello) in Saving Aimee at The 5th Avenue Theatre. Photo: Chris Bennion

Review: Saving Aimee Book, Lyrics and Additional Music by Kathie Lee Gifford. Music by David Pomeranz and David Friedman. Choreographed by Lorin Latarro. Directed by David Armstrong. With Carolee Carmello, Judy Kaye, Ed Watts, Roz Ryan, Brandon O’Neill, Ed Dixon, and Charles Leggett. Now through October 29 at The 5th Avenue Theatre.

I’ve been seeing professional theater for thirty five years and I’ve never left a theater angry, or refused to applaud the performers…that is, until last night at the opening night of “Saving Aimee” at the 5th Avenue. The last 15 minutes of the musical had me so enraged I was muttering out loud…I think I was alarming newscaster Connie Thompson from Channel 4 who was sitting next to me. My muttered, “Jesus Christs!” and “Bullshits” probably had her frantically wishing she had better seats. (Really? They gave a TV personality seats next to bloggers and D-listers? Either our status has improved, or local TV personalities have lost their pull…)

I make the jokes, but it’s only in an effort to control my rage about the abortion I witnessed on stage at the 5th…three hours of my life that I’ll never get back. Three hours of hagiography, lies, untruths, distortions, misrepresentations and evasions passed before my eyes and I’m bitter about it. And, the creators of “Saving Aimee” have a lot to answer for and I’m going to have to put them on the stand to defend themselves because like the “evil” press as portrayed in “Aimee”, I’m going on a “witch hunt” and I’m not going to be satisfied until I get a lot off my chest. Because, you see, I’m a bit of a nut about certain things: theater… musicals… films… history…. the history of films… old Hollywood… religion and politics… odd balls and misfits in history. “Saving Aimee” concerns MANY of the subjects I’m most interested in, subjects I know quite a lot about. And, I know enough about early 20th century American history, Hollywood and Los Angeles in the 1920’s and 30’s, and Aimee Semple McPherson herself, to know that there is a whole lot of crapola being presented as fact in Kathie Lee Gifford’s vanity musical.

Yes, THAT Kathie Lee…America’s sweet heart, Regis’s former co-host, Frank’s loving wife, born again Christian, wine guzzling, current 4th hour of the Today show hosting Kathie Lee Gifford. Ms Gifford has nursed dreams of Broadway stardom for many years and despite her stint on “Name That Tune” (yes, I’m that old) and several musical albums and cabaret shows, she never quite had the right kind of sound or look required for Broadway stardom. And, now that she’s a bit long in the tooth to get a break as a Broadway actress, she’s taken to creating musical theater. If she can’t get a Tony as Best Actress in a Musical, she’ll gladly accept one for Best Book of a Musical.

Kathie Lee did more than write the book…she’s also credited with lyrics and some of the music, with David Pomeranz and David Friedman. And, “Aimee” is very much Kathie Lee’s third child, (after Cody and Cassidy). She’s been riding the local and national press circuit for months, talking up her love for this show, and its subject character, the early 20th Century evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson and has quite openly said she identifies with the character. And, why would that be?

Aimee Semple McPherson is largely unknown today except to the very elderly, or maybe religious types of the Pentecostal or Foursquare faith, or to historians of the period, or to fans of Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry (which features a character based on Aimee) or maybe people old enough to remember the tv movie with Faye Dunaway as Aimee and Bette Davis as her mother. But, Aimee was one of the most famous women in the United States for a large chunk of the mid twentieth century, the first evangelist to become a huge media star. From her home base at the Angelus Temple she built an evangelical empire but as a woman she faced constant scrutiny and criticism. Her mysterious disappearance for a month in 1926 led to charges she had faked her own kidnapping to cover up an affair she was having with a radio engineer on her staff. The charges were eventually dropped and Aimee eventually reclaimed her reputation and reigned over her spiritual empire until her death in 1944 at age 53. Aimee was championed by the lower classes she preached to, as well as to African-Americans and Latinos (her church was non segregated and open to all) and by feminists for being a strong, independent woman. The show biz atmosphere of her services, (involving actors, elaborate sets and props, and live animals) was disdained by many and viewed as hypocritical by others. As a fundamentalist, she preached against sin and Hollywood and theatrics but wasn’t above using them to further her cause. She made millions of dollars, lived a high life but also gave significant amounts of money to help the poor. She also preached a strict Fundamentalist sermon, was a strict anti-evolutionist and railed against modernity and liberalism yet wore diamonds and furs and divorced twice. Her followers claimed she was maligned by the press and the victim of witch hunts; she was the center of media attention for nearly 25 years. She was a complicated, fascinating, contradictory woman…she was also an ardent conservative, fundamentalist Christian opposed to anything that disagreed with her beliefs. She was the first in a long line of evangelists who became involved in the political sphere and the grandmother of the Falwells and the Robertsons of more recent times. If she were alive today, she’d be undoubtedly hosting her own Christian television network and embracing Michele Bachmann at a Tea Party Rally at a Nascar track. (Note: I don’t approve of Aimee, but I still find her fascinating historically.)

Can you see the parallels to Kathie Lee? Misunderstood conservative Christian woman who has been unjustly maligned by the evil press…the same press who discovered her clothing line was made in Asian sweat shops. (She claims she was unaware and she immediately swept into action to right the wrong, but I don’t recall her thanking the press for pointing out this pressing problem.) A brave, strong woman who loves everyone, though she might not approve of their lifestyle, but that doesn’t matter since we all share the same pulse! We’re all connected to God!

Well, no. We’re not. Not everyone HAS the same white bread, beardy God floating around on a heavenly cloud, as Kathie Lee and Aimee…some people’s gods are quite different and some people don’t have a god. “Saving Aimee” however, does have that white bread/bearded GOD and they never let you forget it…this is a very religious show, and don’t let the PR mumbo jumbo try to convince you otherwise. And, that’s fine…if “Saving Aimee” told an honest, truthful story and presented the facts accurately and without bias. But they don’t. It’s a white wash from the opening bars of the first song, all the way to the ludicrous end as Aimee thrusts herself into a halo of white light and forgiveness while the choir sings. It’s sappy…it’s ridiculous…and it’s ultimately disrespectful to the life of the real woman, Aimee Semple McPherson to the point of misogyny.

MISOGYNY?!? you cry…what do you mean? Kathie Lee has said on more than one occasion that she admires Aimee for being a strong woman and that she was persecuted for being such a strong woman in a time when it wasn’t socially correct to do so. But, the martyrdom of Aimee Semple McPherson in “Saving Aimee” comes at the cost of robbing her of her intellect and power. The writers of the show are so intent to portray Aimee as a victim of the evil media, that they’ve made her bland and wishy washy. It starts early on in the show…Aimee is portrayed as a spirited young girl interested in the theater and rather fed up with her mother’s intolerant religious beliefs but is immediately swept into the evangelical movement because she met a sexy young preacher, Robert Semple. In reality, Aimee was preaching against evolution while she was in high school and involved in both her religious and political community from an early age…she had strong beliefs and a fierce drive to express them. The musical makes her religious awakening more of a case of her groin awakening…”OOOH Sexy preacher makes me wet! I want to follow him!” That’s sexist in addition to being incorrect factually. (It’s repeated throughout the show…Aimee hears voices after the birth of her second child, compelling her to start her preaching career. The way it’s presented in the play, it seems more like a bad case of post partum depression. Sexist.)

But, it gets worse. The plot for the musical presents that Aimee married an actor associated with the Temple, then discovered he was a louse and kicked him out and proceeds to go into a depressed tail spin which leads to that mysterious “disappearance”. In other words, a man done her wrong, girlfriend got all mopey and depressed (like chicks do) and went to hide out and recover, thus leading to the whole scandal. Except it didn’t happen that way…Aimee did marry an actor, David Hutton, and he was a louse, but the marriage occurred FIVE YEARS after the disappearance. Not only is it incorrect historically, but it makes the character’s motivation for her strange behavior rooted in stereotypical “feminine” character traits. Sad, lovelorn girls always do the craziest things when they’re all sad and stuff! They just can’t think straight!

The show goes out of its way to make Aimee a simple, naive, spiritual woman of God. Yes, they portray her hypocrisies; the use of show business tactics to build her flock while denouncing the sins of theatricality and Hollywood but they skirt over them…everything potentially negative about Sister Aimee gets a casual shrug. She popped pills; it’s ok, she was tired from working so hard! Dumped her dull second husband; it’s ok, he stood in her way! Neglected her kids; it’s ok, we’re not portraying the kids on stage! Made a shit ton of money and spent quite a bit of it on her own lifestyle; we’re not going into that! Talk about her actual beliefs (the ultra fundamentalist/conservative ones she preached/the speaking in tongues); it’s ok, we’re not really going to portray that because lots of liberal folks go to musicals and we don’t want to piss them off, or any of those liberal, gay loving Broadway producers who might flinch at a musical about a woman who’s politically to the right of Sarah Palin! It’s OK!

Before I mentioned how they changed some of the actual biography of Aimee to fit the plot. Yes, I understand that happens a lot in plays and films and television, and yes it can be necessary to trim bits of a story, or consolidate, or eliminate whole sections to make it fit into a two and a half hour show. But, I do have a problem when it’s done FALSELY to promote an agenda and it’s done quite often in “Saving Aimee”.

It’s also done hypocritically. The ending of “Aimee” would have us believe that Aimee’s strong-willed mother blackmailed William Randolph Hearst into calling off his tabloid reporters from negative portrayals of Aimee and to instead paint her in a more positive light. Meanwhile, Aimee’s beloved assistant/maid blackmails a rival male evangelist who has been preaching against Aimee and her sin. Neither is factual and an apocryphal story is told by the mother repeating an often told but never proven Hollywood tale that William Randolph Hearst accidentally killed a man he believed was sleeping with his mistress, the actress Marion Davies. But, you see it’s ok for Kathie Lee to use this potentially libelous folk tale to exonerate her heroine because it’s all the evil press’s fault that this injustice happened to poor old Aimee…well, that and her moodiness over the failed marriage. Those silly lady hormones! Darn you God for giving the gentle sex those darn feelings!

I could go on and on about small details…like all the Hollywood stuff, most of which they got wrong. Louella Parsons didn’t sound like Margaret Dumont and Charlie Chaplin wasn’t gay. Yes, I’m quibbling but I told you several hundred words ago, I was a geek about Hollywood history…

I also hated the set (a cross between Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and the set from “Carrie: The Musical”…I kept expecting Betty Buckley to emerge from a trap door screaming something about “dirty pillows”).

It was supposed to represent the Angelus Temple I guess, but it was a little too white and deco sterile to pass for a Foursquare church. It also had a disturbing trapezoidal opening/staging area that was very Vagina Dementa in appearance. (I also loved the underpants strung on tv aerials used to represent the Lower East Side of New York during Aimee’s NYC years…) Walt Spangler has done many glorious sets at the 5th Avenue…this ain’t one of them.

The costumes were pretty…too pretty for the chorus members portraying Aimee’s flock which tended to be poor and ethnic not white bread and twirling around wearing chiffon. It was an MGM styled show, but Aimee’s fans were straight out of Gower Gulch…poor and disenfranchised. And, I don’t claim to be an expert in fashion, but some of the clothes seemed a bit more 1930’s than 1920’s.

As for the performances, they were all good as can be expected. Carolee Carmello gives an outstanding performance with the material she’s been given…but she deserves better. Her switch, early on in the show, from an adult Aimee to a teenaged version of the character was astoundingly good and vocally, she was a powerhouse. She had the audience in her pocket from her first entrance to her glorious ascent into heaven at the end of the show.

Two other Broadway veterans back up Ms Carmello. Sadly, Judy Kaye as Aimee’s complicated, frequently rigid mother has few songs to sing and an unevenly written character to portray. Mama Minnie is part monster but the writers of the show keep waffling on how monstrous the character should be, to the point where the character is only diffuse and irritating. Roz Ryan as a sassy (of course) former madam turned maid/personal assistant is a delight, but the character is such a characterture that it almost borders on racist. (At some point, I want to sit down with African American actors and ask them how they feel about playing the sassy, quick witted, loving and loyal side kick in so many shows.) Ms Ryan is excellent and I’m very thankful the character was in the show, (it’s the one consistently entertaining and interesting character) but “Emma Jo” never feels like a real person…she’s just comedy relief.

Meanwhile the three main actors in the show, all have to double up on parts. Ed Dixon as Aimee’s loving dad was the best part of Act I and his windbaggy rival evangelist in Act II was almost as well received. His fellow Broadway import, Ed Watts made a fine Robert Semple in Act I, though not really given that much to do (Spoiler Alert: Aimee was a widow) but his largely unclothed performance in Act II as resident beefcake actor/husband #3 David Hutton was appreciated for his fine physique and strong voice.

Poor local actor Brandon O’Neill…he gets stuck playing dull second husband Harold MacPherson in the first half of the show only to be rewarded with what SHOULD have been the juicy role of Kenneth Ormiston, the man Aimee was rumored to have run off with during her “disappearance” in the second half but since the creators are adamant that Aimee did NOT run off with Ormiston, all the actor gets is a couple of mediocre and sappy songs to sing.

But, Charles Leggett has the worst role of all. He plays the real life District Attorney who prosecuted Aimee, Asa Keyes. Act I of “Saving Aimee” is developed as a flashback with the framework of it being Aimee’s trial for faking her disappearance. Keyes and various witnesses pop up at certain periods to “testify” about the case and to further the narrative. Then, that framework disappears for most of Act II, (along with Asa Keyes) only to reappear at the end for the final trial scene. It’s a horridly written role for one of Seattle’s best actors and he makes the best of it that he can, but it’s such a waste of talent.  To make matters worse, the real life Keyes was a scumball, convicted of accepting a bribe two years after the Sister Aimee trial. Naturally, the creators of “Saving Aimee” bring this up at the end of the show, to “prove” that Aimee was a victim.

This is a LOOOONG review, but I have to elaborate on the “Aimee as victim” plot of this musical. It’s bullshit. Aimee Semple McPherson was no one’s victim and to suggest otherwise is demeaning to her strength and power. Yes, she was a woman in a time when it was tough to be a powerful woman, but she was also a public figure, and a willing one, on the controversial stage where religion and show business and politics and money and the media all meet. Aimee was not naive, or stupid, or victimized. She made mistakes that she tried to cover up and she got caught. She also persevered and for better or worse, she become an iconic figure. But, she’s not a saint and she’s not a martyr. To suggest otherwise is false, and it robs her memory by making her something she is not.

The same could be said for Kathie Lee Gifford. She’s likable, that Kathie Lee…frank, funny, seemingly down to earth when she’s not being pretentiously teary eyed or strident. In the last couple years, she’s been earnestly trying to win over new fans. For years, the elderly and the devout were her biggest followers, but her candor and camp appeal started to earn her a dedicated gay fandom. Since her career resurrection on the Today show, where she daily tortures Hoda Kotb and espouses her love of wine drinking, she’s whole heartedly gone after winning LGBTQ love (hey, we love the theater!) and given several interviews where she talks about all her gay friends. It had gotten to the point where I was even softening to her charms…”awww! Kathie Lee likes going out and getting drunk with her Gay Posse! She’s awesome!” We even pursued an interview with her, while she was in town, and dispatched someone to talk with the Divine Mrs. Gifford.

But, for reasons unknown, that interview was never turned in, and that annoyed me as I watched other outlets publish their Kathie Lee interviews, (she talked to everyone in town who’d take her to lunch). But now, after seeing this show, I’m happy the interview didn’t get published. I still “like” Kathie Lee; she’s hard not to like for her entertainment value and she seems theatrically genuine. But, like all of us, she has an agenda. Despite her love of merlot guzzling with the hairdressers of the Upper West Side, she’s still a Conservative Christian media star who might love us, but she doesn’t love our sin and she makes sure to never go out of her way to support Same Sex Marriage or any civil rights for LGBTQ people. “Saving Aimee” is a right wing polemic, a white wash of a fascinating, flawed Conservative Christian media star that its creators are trying to force down our throats as a noble, heroic, victimized figure brutalized by the media that helped create her. It’s a lie and a waste of talent. And, it didn’t have to be. Aimee’s story is ripe for dramatization…hopefully, a future one will deal with her realistically.

I can “like” Kathie Lee and the true story of Aimee Semple McPherson but that doesn’t mean I approve of their methods. 

We won’t be going out for wine and tapas anytime soon.

(3200+  words, and not one about the sloppy structure, gaping plot holes, deadly dull sections, or the bland music of “Saving Aimee”….It’s not worth the effort.)

(And, to make this even longer, I feel compelled to point out I went to “Saving Aimee” with a relatively open mind and enjoyed roughly the first 20 minutes of the musical; Roz Ryan’s big number, and all the semi naked scenes with Ed Watts. Like I’ve written earlier, I’ve long been a student of both Ms McPherson and the era in which she lived; I was hoping this would be a good show. I will admit I had my doubts that it could be pulled off; biographical musicals are very difficult to do and I wasn’t much impressed with the resumes of any of the three writers of “Saving Aimee” but that risk is always assumed when seeing a new show, especially a musical. And, yes, I am quite liberal, extremely gay and agnostic teetering on atheistic. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy or appreciate theatrical/literary/cinematic works that deal with non-liberal and/or religious themes. I adore “The Ten Commandments” and it was made by the biggest right wing director in Hollywood starring one of the biggest conservatives in Hollywood and it’s 4 hours about God’s wrath and Anne Baxter’s delightful over acting…)