Breakfast at Tiffany’s

If you have a fond nostalgia for the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s, then steer clear of the eponymous show adapted by Richard Greenberg now playing at The Cort Theatre. The show is closer to the original novella by Truman Capote and may be bewildering to those who haven’t read it. The names are the same, but the characters seem quite different, darker and less likable.

The story begins as a flashback when the steadfast bartender Joe Bell (played by the avuncular George Wendt) summons Fred (Cory Michael Smith) because he may know Holly Golightly’s whereabouts. Fred, an aspiring writer, recalls his neighbor, Holly, a sprite-like woman who flits through life, enchanting all around her. As he addresses the audience, he recalls the characters who lived in his building in NY, pre-World War II. Eventually all the memories revolve around Holly who wakes him in the middle of the night when she forgets her key (which is all the time.) She dubs him “Fred” since he reminds her of her brother. She immediately bewitches him but since he has no money, she makes it clear that they must remain friends. He’s drawn to Holly, but he also feels attraction to men.

TV fans of “Game of Thrones” cheer when Holly (played by Emilia Clarke) appears on stage. Wide-eyed and beautifully dressed (wardrobe by Colleen Atwood) Clarke is diminutive and luminous and she brings an innocence to the character. However, her accent is too affected and is often distracting. She looks good but her acting is not wonderful. Smith brings his own vulnerability to the role of Fred. The star of the recent Off-Broadway hit, The Cockfight, the androgynous Smith is more appealing and disarming than Clarke.

If you don’t know the movie and have no preconceived ideas, then perhaps the show will work for you. However, it does go on too long. The characters have the same names but are far more sexual. Holly Golightly talks about dykes, lesbians and cash for the ladies’ room from her older men admirers. There’s even a gratuitous nude scene when “Fred” falls from a horse and the two get into the tub together. There’s no homosexuality in the movie version, nor is Holly’s relationship with men so explicit. The play is more 2013 than 1958 when Capote wrote it.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s would do better if it were renamed Holly to cause us to leave our expectations behind. Not only do we meet a different actress who we unfairly compare to Audrey Hepburn, we also meet a different Holly, one who is worldlier,

hardened and sexual. It’s hard to care about Holly when she proudly notes that “she doesn’t take credit, only cash.” Unfortunately for Clarke and the cast, it’s hard to care about this version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s at all.