At the height of his powers, there was no one more fabulous than Halston.
With apologies to Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Diane von Furstenberg and other fashion industry titans, Halston occupied a rarefied perch as arguably the most influential American designer of the 20th century.
Effortlessly chic, Halston’s aesthetic helped define not only the visual style of the 1970s, but also the zeitgeist of the era. Liza Minnelli was his BFF, he shared a lover with Andy Warhol, and Studio 54 in its decadent heyday was his personal playground.
By doing what appeared to come naturally, working tirelessly and partying just as hard, Halston almost singlehandedly invented the idea of fashionista as celebrity. In fact, he was one of the first designers to transform himself into a brand, extending his influence through fragrances, mass-market licensing deals and a carefully cultivated, impossibly glamorous public persona.
Written by Raffaele Pacitti, directed by Michael Wilson and starring Matt McGrath, Bay Street Theater’s world premiere production of Mister Halston delivers an electric and moving portrait of the fashion icon during the final chapters of his remarkable life.
It’s 1987. We’re in Halston’s legendary Upper East Side townhouse. Still formidable, but firmly middle-aged and definitely not in perfect health, Halston greets a young writer for The New York Times who has come to the townhouse to profile him. Since this is a one-man show and McGrath plays only a single role, the unseen, unheard writer character serves as a stand-in for the audience, allowing Halston to address us directly. It’s an effective piece of scenography that plays particularly well in a small theater like Bay Street.
Given that this production appears to have aspirations that extend beyond its first-ever staging in the Hamptons, aspirations that might take it, say, 100 miles or so to the west, it will be interesting to see how the unseen writer device might play in a larger, less intimate venue.
When we meet Halston in his townhouse, he’s in his mid-50s and already beginning to feel the effects of the AIDS virus which would ultimately take his life three years later. But this is not a man on his death bed.
He’s huffing cocaine, swilling booze from Baccarat crystal and stomping around the stage. One moment he’s threatening the writer and ferociously angry as he screams at his lawyer on the telephone, then he’s nostalgic and reflective, even seductive. And at times, when he’s at his most human, he’s just world weary and beaten down. Regret has rendered him almost unrecognizable, a shadow of the Halston everyone of a certain age thinks they know.
Like Halston’s creations, scenic designer James Noone’s townhouse set is bold and tasteful, but also relatively spare, except for a series of video screens asymmetrically arrayed against the back stage wall. Wilson and his team make very good use of the screens as the narrative progresses.
A few carefully placed white orchids, the designer’s signature flower, provide just a bit of welcome contrast to the deep, resplendent red tones of the set. An old school touch-tone telephone, also in red, not only serves as a vital prop, but also positively screams ‘late-80s.’
Aided and abetted by powerful imagery on the video screens, McGrath dips in and out of key moments from Halston’s personal and professional history, including his formative years when Roy Halston Frowick, a not-so-naive midwestern boy, came to New York and gradually conquered the upper echelons of the city’s fashion culture.
Before he became a legendary clothing designer, Halston was an in-house milliner at Bergdorf Goodman. An early signature moment, which McGrath brings beautifully to life, came when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis asked Halston to design a hat for her to wear to President Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. Halston, who was 29 at the time, created the pillbox hat that became an instant fashion classic on that windy day in Washington D.C.
McGrath clearly embraces the inherent peril and potential glory of carrying a one-man show. He doesn’t seem to be playing Halston, he positively inhabits the man. He nails the designer’s seemingly endless confidence and faith in his own vision, but also the haunting insecurity that bubbles just below the surface.
While he obviously had a vibrant inner life, Halston was a person who fixated on facades. Long before the social media era changed the game, he recognized that you don’t create a billion-dollar fashion brand without focusing relentlessly on image-building. Pacitti’s trenchant script makes that clear, and McGrath consistently shows the audience what it looks like.
Listen to the timbre and cadence of his voice change, how he ratchets up the campiness, when he talks to Liza Minnelli on the red phone. Watch the desperate ways he attempts to bully the Times profile writer, first via fire and brimstone, then via flattery, into writing his piece exactly as Halston wishes it to be written.
McGrath and Wilson create several exceptionally involving set pieces. In one, Halston recounts the inspiration that led him to create the iconic watercolor chiffon dress Lauren Hutton wore to the 1975 Academy Awards.
As swaths of fabric fall from the rafters, Halston catches them in mid-air and arrays them on a dressmaker’s dummy while presenting a running commentary on the inspiration behind the design. Meanwhile the video screens flash shots of the gown itself and Hutton wearing it. It’s an absolutely thrilling piece of staging.
Ultimately, Mister Halston doles out the fabulousness and the pathos in almost equal measure. As it probably had to, the story ends on a plaintive note, reminding us that no matter how incandescent it may be at its pinnacle, fame has a shelf life.
Halston laments having sold his name and personal brand to the mass market retailer JC Penney, albeit for a staggering amount of money. As he schemes with his lawyer to regain control of his design legacy, the conversation feels less like a workable plan and more like a cry for help.
“They will need me again,” he says of the industry that made him a fashion superstar. But as the curtain falls, neither he nor the audience has a reason to believe that.
