The Wisdom of Eve
The Metatheatrical Treatise on Ambition
By: Victor Cordell - Oct 27, 2025
Movie fans will know the 1950 film All About Eve, winner of six Oscars including Best Picture, as a true Hollywood classic loved by critics and audience alike. Musical fans will know the Broadway hit Applause, winner of four Tonys, also a classic. Both were based on an earlier short story called The Wisdom of Eve, written by Mary Orr. The title comes full circle with the subsequent play adopting the name of the original story, and in this form, it is a metatheatrical drama, focusing on the backstage and backroom machinations of theater people and productions. Clearly, the story of ambition and betrayal with crackling dialog has legs, and the Altarena Playhouse presentation entertains as the actors relish the clashes of personalities and desired outcomes.
The movie is easily the best known of the adaptations. The big picture elements of the play’s plot remain the same as the movie’s, but because of intellectual property struggles among owners of the various adaptations of the story, differences in the details abound.
A recurring theme in theater and film is that of the anguish of an aging star witnessing and suffering the rise of a youthful one. In this one, Margo Crane has been the toast of Broadway, but literal cracks in her façade undermine her ability to continue performing the ingenue roles that have elevated her stature.
Though she believes that she has many friends in the Broadway community, Margo even has serious conflicts with close collaborator Lloyd Roberts, playwright of her three most recent hits. And while she counts Lloyd’s wife, Karen, (an enchanting Allison Gamlen) among her closest friends, the truth is that Karen is a frenemy who resents much of Margo’s behavior and who will stoop to trip Margo up. The complexity and unpredictability of relationships among big-ego power players is one of the truisms that the play explores with great success.
Yet, as the title of the movie suggests, the plot is really all about Eve. She is not only a main mover of the action that follows but a combatant in much of the friction and a catalyst for even more. Anna Kosiarek is effectively demure as the solicitous Eve Harrington when she enters as a mouse – a stage door adulator. However, Eve’s strategy includes a backstory to induce sympathy for her and help her insinuate her way into Margo’s realm.
Eve succeeds. The usually standoffish Margo is taken in by Eve’s obeisance and seeming sincerity, and hires her as her assistant on the spot. In the new position, Eve appears to subsume her needs to those of her mentor even as she wrangles to become her understudy.
Meanwhile, Sindu Singh as Margo adeptly displays the arrogance and self-centeredness of many great entertainers. But because of going a step too far in abusing her relationship with Lloyd and Karen, the latter conspires to open the door for Margo’s decline and Eve’s ascent.
As a character study, The Wisdom of Eve covers the waterfront with each principal facing different trials. Singh’s impassioned Margo shows wild swings of behavior as she confronts the reality of aging. Karen reveals that when someone’s future is threatened that they can engage in behaviors that otherwise seem out of character. Interestingly, though the author is a woman, she lets the men off pretty easily. Lloyd’s (Alan Kropp) worst sin is feigning obsequiousness when his future paycheck is threatened, which is unsurprising. Clement (Dan Allan) who is Margo’s husband and producer, is a middle-road pragmatist but who will do business with the devil if it will make the play work. It goes to show how an abominable person can succeed in entertainment if they can make the cash register ring.
The real piece of work is Eve, who reveals herself as an opportunist and manipulator with no compunctions. Kosiarek is persuasive as her Eve becomes explicit in her sneering self-confidence and with her threats. Eve is either unguarded or unafraid enough to share denigrating thoughts about others even with the press. The dramatic revelation of the real Eve is one of the masterful characterizations in fiction.
Starting with a sterling script, Kimberly Ridgeway’s direction is decisive and effective. Tom Curtin’s versatile set creates a suitable appearance for multiple venues; Stephanie Anne Johnson’s lighting isolates and highlights to great effect; and Ava Byrd's costumery provides the right look for the theater crowd of the period. Acting on opening night was uneven, a little short on gravitas overall and on glamor in the expected roles, one exception being Gamlen who seems fitting for Broadway society.
The Wisdom of Eve, written by Mary Orr, is produced by Altarena Playhouse and appears on its stage at 1409 High Street, Alameda, CA through November 23, 2025.