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.
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