Double Feature is a new play by John Logan, whose credits include Skyfall. The subject is movie-making, and the action is set in 1964 in a Hollywood cottage where Alfred Hitchcock is preparing Tippi Hedren for a nude scene in Marnie. The great director, who made a star of the unknown Hedren by casting her in The Birds, has all the power here. He positively quivers to get her into bed and yet he hesitates because he’s three times her age and nine times her girth.

Nobody, not even a director of Kent’s powers, can make a gourmet feast out of two half-eaten pizzas

Their interactions have a gruesome master-slave vibe and it’s hard to know whose side to take. The control-freak director who appears physically revolting despite his natty suit? Or the simpering blonde who looks as frail as a cobweb? Eventually Hedren gives Hitchcock a richly deserved tongue-lashing and at the same time a double-bed is shoved on stage. It’s empty but the sheets are tousled. Did she sleep with him? Has he raped her? It is unclear. And it’s unclear why it’s unclear. A biographical play like this should embrace the truth and not blush coyly and try to sweep it out of view.

That’s, however, not the least satisfying aspect of Double Feature which is this: a second play is in progress during the Hitchcock/Hedren drama. Yes, that’s right. Two scripts are staged alongside each other in a single space. The second play, wholly unrelated to the first, is about an argument that took place during the making of Witchfinder General. The setting is Suffolk, not Hollywood, and the year is 1967 not 1964. The chief characters are the young director Michael Reeves and his star, Vincent Price, who threatens to quit the movie in a fit of rage.

QOSHE - This play about Hitchcock isn’t worth leaving the house for - Lloyd Evans
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This play about Hitchcock isn’t worth leaving the house for

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07.03.2024

Double Feature is a new play by John Logan, whose credits include Skyfall. The subject is movie-making, and the action is set in 1964 in a Hollywood cottage where Alfred Hitchcock is preparing Tippi Hedren for a nude scene in Marnie. The great director, who made a star of the unknown Hedren by casting her in The Birds, has all the power here. He positively quivers to get her into bed and yet he hesitates because........

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