Red Scare on Sunset

The Uptown Players present Charles Busch’s Red Scare on Sunset, directed by Andi Allen.

Mary Dale, the ’50s film star, is a radiant embodiment of the old Hollywood star system whose no-nonsense approach to acting is “Learn your lines and don’t bump into the furniture.” More willfully naïve than every Doris Day mannequin rolled into one, Mary is blissfully unaware that her houseboy is trying to seduce her husband, her husband is having an affair, her all-American best friend is a former porno actress, and that all of them are being pulled into the tentacles of the Communist menace sweeping the country.

Taking the form of a red-baiting propaganda tract designed to stir the hearts and minds of Hollywood, Red Scare on Sunset documents Mary’s uproarious conversion from Rodeo Drive robot to McCarthy marauder, naming names (including her husband) before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. With its benign ’50s Technicolor veneer, the play scores some tart contemporary points about the lemming instincts of the entertainment industry, the omnipresent homophobia of Hollywood and flag-waving as a self-promotional tool.