Florence Foster Jenkins was the Andy Kaufman of her day–a
singer so awful that she became a joke unto herself, a laughingstock. The
difference is that Kaufman knew what he was doing; it was the audience that
wasn’t quite sure. Jenkins, on the other hand, deluded herself into thinking
she was one of the world’s greatest sopranos, even though it was plain to
everyone within earshot that her sense of pitch and rhythm was abysmal, and her
claim to greatness a hilariously over-the-top conceit, like Louie Anderson
claiming to be the fastest sprinter in the world.

And yet, Jenkins got so popular in the early 1940s that she
became one of the best-known celebrities in New York, and at the age of
seventy-six played to a packed house at Carnegie Hall. When people bit their
fists trying to hold back their laughter, she thought people were so
emotionally overcome by her singing that they were crying and trying to
stifle their sobs. 

In its latest play, Souvenir, (written by Stephen
Temperley, directed by Joel Sass) the Jungle Theater has mounted a
lovingly crafted and executed homage to the peculiar persona that was Florence
Foster Jenkins. Was she crazy? Did she have a weird sort of genius? Judge for
yourself, because Claudia Wilkens is turning in a virtuosic, pitch-perfect
performance as the woman who famously had no sense of pitch. Wilkens returned
to the stage last weekend after tripping and breaking her arm during a
performance the weekend before, but the cast on her arm did not diminish her
performance a bit; Wilkens’ portrayal of the self-deluded Ms. Jenkins is simply
brilliant.

Told as a reminiscence of their years together by her piano
accompanist, Cosme McMoon (skillfully played by Peter Vitale), the play covers
the many years they spent doing only one show a year at the Ritz-Carlton in New
York for a selective audience of high-society notables, up through her
quasi-legendary performance at Carnegie Hall and her death a month later.
Claudia Wilkens flawlessly recreates the profoundly flawed intonation of
Jenkins’ singing, and imbues her character with a large heart and a boundless
ego, making her both sympathetic and strange. As for Vitale, he is an
accomplished pianist and a capable actor, making him a great choice to play
McMoon, if for no other reason than he really plays the piano like someone who
has been doing it his whole life.

McMoon does the gig with Jenkins for money, but as the play
unfolds he reveals a sense of protectiveness toward her, since Jenkins doesn’t
seem to realize that the main enjoyment people get at her shows is from
laughing at her. He knows she’s awful, and he knows the audience knows, but her
obliviousness to her own ineptitude gradually begins to look like a peculiar
sort of heroism, like someone with no arms or legs insisting that they are
going to finish that marathon in record time. It’s sad and pathetic, but also
endearing–because, as Wilkens portrays her, Jenkins is the embodiment of the
American idea that you can be anything you want to be if you just wish it hard
enough. Jenkins’ only real crime (other than her musical felonies) is that she
wished a little too hard.

Much of the play’s good-natured humor grows out of Jenkins’
mind-boggling over-estimation of her own skills. When McMoon suggests that she
is slightly off-key, she insists that she has perfect pitch and sighs that the
piano must be out of tune. Upon listening to a recording of herself, she is
bothered that one section isn’t “perfect,” and concludes that it is McMoon who
made a mistake. McMoon is flabbergasted–but, much to his dismay, the record
enjoys tremendous sales and Jenkins’ star continues to rise, even as his own
solo career flounders. He can argue with her music, but he can’t argue with
their success, however mystifying it may be.

Souvenir continues at The Jungle Theater through Dec. 21,
jungletheater.com

Listen to the real Flo Jenkins here: