Legacy of Leigh

She is forever etched into pop-culture iconography as the vain but gritty Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. She is almost as well known for her Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire -- an aging, hallucinatory Southern belle who could easily have passed for Scarlett's direct descendent. But to writer and actress Marcy Lafferty, Vivien Leigh the person is perhaps even more fascinating than the roles she made famous. It's a point she aims to make in her one-woman show, Vivien Leigh: The Last Press Conference, in which Lafferty portrays Leigh near her tragic end -- reflecting on her life, career and tragedies, slipping in and out of reality and time lines.

"It's a heavy responsibility to play her," Lafferty says from Los Angeles. "And I had no affinity for Vivien Leigh until I started learning about her. Then I really admired her courage and realized that she was a smashing actress who was up against a lot in her [personal] life."

Lafferty didn't even start out to research her subject. She was working on her college thesis about Laurence Olivier, whose marriage to Leigh was one of the most famous and tempestuous among thespians. Gradually, Lafferty began devouring All Things Leigh, and wrote and starred in a film about her that was nominated for an Academy Award for Short Subject. A full-length play followed. Eight years later came the 1997 premiere of The Last Press Conference in Scotland, and she still found her subject -- and the duality of Leigh's personality -- irresistible.

"She had great charm and was an amazing actress, but she was also a [clinically diagnosed] manic depressive who had electrical treatment. Plus she had tuberculosis, which she died of," Lafferty says. Regarding the often-stated comparison that the line between Leigh's tragic women characters and her own life was quite thin, she offers, "I think all her parts mirrored her life so phenomenally that it's almost scary."

Lafferty does not impersonate so much as suggest Leigh, utilizing voice, manner and makeup. And almost three-fourths of the dialogue are Leigh's own words, culled from actual quotes. So how effective is it? "When I did the original play, Vivien's goddaughter was in the audience," Lafferty remembers. "And she was so shaken that she had to leave in the middle of the performance." Well, I do declare.

-- Bob Ruggiero

Vivien Leigh: The Last Press Conference plays until August 8 at 8 p.m. and on August 9 at 4 p.m. at Theatre LaB, 1706 Alamo (off 2100 Houston). 868-7516. $18 and $20.