Satire sizzles, thanks to imported actress

Sojourn in Portland no purgatory for Antoinette LaVecchia

By ERIC BARTELS

The Portland Tribune, May 22, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Antoinette LaVecchia plays fiendish agent Diane in “The Little Dog Laughed,” the Douglas Carter Beane comedy that’s been packing ’em in at Portland Center Stage.

©2008 OWEN CAREY

New York actress Antoinette LaVecchia is the absolute heart and empty soul of Portland Center Stage’s ‘The Little Dog Laughed,’ the Douglas Carter Beane comedy that’s in its third week of wedging audiences into the Gerding Theater’s Studio Stage.

The crackling satire follows LaVecchia’s fast-talking artist management type, Diane, as she tries to keep a budding gay relationship from compromising the marketability of her actor-client.

Beane, who wrote the screenplay for the gender-switching film comedy “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar,” is too smart to let his newest work sink into clichés about gay style and Hollywood venality. The stuff does generate some terrific one-liners, though, and LaVecchia has many of them.

“Do you hate me?” she asks her client at one point. “The way all gay men hate women unless they’re in a black and white movie and suffering majestically?”

LaVecchia, who isn’t inclined to reveal her age but may actually remember Julie Newmar, is one of four actors imported to Portland for the production. She has a lengthy résumé from both New York and regional stages, and credits for film and television that include “The Sopranos” and “CSI.”

Still, she had no trouble committing to 12 weeks in Portland.

“New York has been kind of dead,” she says. “There hasn’t been a lot going on with regard to TV and film. There are so many actors out of work right now.”

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