BWW Reviews: GO FIGURE! THE RANDY GARDNER STORY - A Perfect Score Not Quite Landed
By: Gil Kaan May. 18, 2015
Go Figure! The Randy Gardner Story/co-written by Randy Gardner/co-written & directed by Josh Ravetch/The NoHo Arts Center/thru June 14, 2015
The world premiere of Go Figure! The Randy Gardner Story receives a not quite taut mounting in its initial outing at the NoHo Arts Center. Director Josh Ravetch, who co-wrote this with Gardner, allows his star to proceed with his biographical tales, some quite riveting, some very candid, at his own desired pace. Ravetch has previously exhibited his firmer hand in two successes I have had the pleasure to witness (Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking and One November Yankee starring Loretta Swit and Harry Hamlin which premiered at NoHo Arts.)
Opening weekend has the advantage of Olympic Sweetheart Dorothy Hamill introducing Gardner's one-man show with his skating partner Tai Babilonia closing it. Both ladies, vibrant and charming, read their parts with script in hand. Hamill reminisces of meeting the skating couple back when they were 10 and 12-years-old, just beginning their figure skating careers. Babilonia recites a poem she wrote for Gardner that seemed sincerely genuine and way too rawly intimate to be shared with a theatre full of strangers.
Gardner starts his story with the revelation that he was adopted. Not until age 40, did Gardner find out that his birth mother's boss raped her resulting in himself. Due to the morals of the 1950s, the illegitimate infant was put up for adoption. Gardner's recreation of his phone calls and actual meeting with his birth mom simply fascinate. Slide show of Gardner with his birth mom and other important snapshots and videos of his life complement the various tales immensely. Would have loved to hear the reactions of Gardner's namesake relations to his reunion with his newly discovered birth mom.
Another intriguing account involved a pair of Russian skaters defecting with the help of former Olympic winning figure skater turned sports commentator Dick Button. More on the US/Russian rivalry on the rink and in the Olympics would yield additional noteworthy stage fodder.
Gardner's coming out, conversion therapy and marriage to husband Jay receiving too short shift could certainly enthrall with more fleshing out.
Ice skating aficionados would assuredly enjoy the archival videos of the competition routines of the three (and other) ice skating greats. Audience participation in the form of skating lessons might work more effectively picking only one or two front rowers, rather than having the entire audience attempting steps not that fundamental.
Gardner displays a photo of a then younger former US Secretary of State Condelezza Rice skating with himself. Rice had confided that the discipline required of her in the sport of ice skating propelled her in her quest for political prominence. She advised anyone else utilizing that discipline could go the distance in whatever they endeavored. Possibly opening night jitters caused Gardner's forgetfulness and rambling. He sure should use some of Rice's advice in his act. Or maybe just cheatsheets of his story lists hidden at the music stand or the winners' podium.
A tighter, more polished performance (like his gold-winning pairing with Babilonia, at the 1979 World Figure Skating Championships) would certainly score Gardner higher here. If, in a kiss-and-cry, Gardner would surely earn an encouraging and supportive "You tried" pat on the shoulder from his coach.
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