It wasn’t easy being Zelda Fitzgerald. The talented wife of “Great Gatsby” writer F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered from bipolar disorder, for which she was often institutionalized. Her marriage was tempestuous, her artistic ambitions mainly thwarted. She died at 47 in a fire at the sanitarium in which she was a patient.
Now, 64 years after her death, she must suffer the indignity of “Zelda at the Oasis,” a scattershot biographical portrait.
P.H. Lin’s play depicts Zelda (Gardner Reed, in her New York stage debut), looking like an aging flapper, whiling away the night in an after-hours New York City watering hole in 1934. The only other soul in the place is the weary Bar Man (Edwin Cahill), who has no idea that his sole patron is the famous Zelda.
“Have you any idea who I am?” she inquires.
When he professes his ignorance, she declares, “I am all things new and modern!” So much for the hoary dialogue.
Eventually, the hard-drinking Zelda drifts into memories of her tumultuous life in a series of flashbacks in which the barkeep becomes such figures as F. Scott, a cub reporter, a doctor, Ernest Hemingway and Zelda’s French lover. He also shows up in drag as a Russian dance instructor and Zelda’s mother.
The major events of Zelda’s brief life are dutifully ticked off in anecdotal, depth-free proceedings. The playwright tries to flesh out the bartender character by making him an aspiring songwriter. That mirrors Zelda’s frustrated ambition to become a dancer, signaled here by her frantically breaking into a series of ballet steps.
Zelda never comes to life here despite Reed’s impressively brave performance. Cahill fares less well, although it’s doubtful any actor could play so many disparate characters convincingly.
Director Andy Sandberg is adrift in his handling of the play’s ever-shifting modes, although Colin McGurk’s set and Dustin Cross’ costumes provide the perfect period atmosphere.
“So, are you going to refill my spirit?” Zelda asks the Bar Man early in the evening. It’s a poignant request that is never quite answered in this empty vessel of a play.