Former Romulan commands solo show

Maurice Roëves portrays the lover of D.H. Lawrence’s wife Frieda in the one-man play “Just a Gigolo.”

Even though Scottish actor Maurice Roëves has assumed dozens of film and movie roles including a Romulan captain in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” a colonel in “The Last of the Mohicans” and a police captain in “Murder, She Wrote,” he’s only performed two, one-man plays during his more than 40-year-long career.

“Just a Gigolo,” which was written by Stephen Lowe early in 2012, is Roëves’ second one-man play. He first performed it in August at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Next weekend he brings the story of the lover of D.H. Lawrence’s wife, Frieda Lawrence, to The Cell in Albuquerque and to the Santa Fe Playhouse in Santa Fe.

“I play Angelo Ravagli, who is a complex, cheeky and mischievous man,” Roëves said. “He’s a man of love. Literally. It’s said that Angelo is the real Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

	If you go WHAT: “Just a Gigolo” WHEN and WHERE: 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11 and Saturday, Jan. 12 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13, The Cell Theatre, 700 First NW; 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18 and 19, Santa Fe Playhouse, 142 E. De Vargas St., Santa Fe HOW MUCH: $20 general admission, $15 students and seniors. Call 505-766-9412 for Albuquerque tickets, 505-988-4262 for Santa Fe tickets

Ravagli was the gardener of D.H. Lawrence when the writer and his wife lived in Italy in the mid-1920s. He began a long affair with Lawrence’s wife and ended up marrying her in 1950. From 1950 to Frieda’s death in 1956, the couple lived together on D.H. Lawrence’s ranch in Taos.

Ravagli inherited nine of D.H. Lawrence’s paintings from his wife. Since he didn’t like the paintings and had no cash assets, he decided to try to sell the paintings to Saki Karavas, one of his drinking buddies who owned La Fonda Hotel in Taos, after his wife died. His goal was to raise enough money to purchase a ticket back to Italy.

“The play takes place in Saki’s office in La Fonda,” Roëves explained. “To prepare for the play, I visited the office as well as the Lawrence ranch. The visits helped me put everything into context.”

“Just a Gigolo” reveals how Ravagli was more than a gigolo. As he shows an imaginary Karavas each of the nine paintings that were created by D.H. Lawrence, he talks about his life and his feelings for Frieda Lawrence. Images of the paintings are projected on a screen on stage.

“Stephen wrote this play as a stream of consciousness,” said Roëves. “There’s no punctuation in the writing. It jumps and starts. Some of the lines are in Italian. When I first learned the play, I learned it by heart. Then I unlearned it and learned it again. I needed to make sure it was a part of me.”

Lowe, who is directing the New Mexico shows, has worked with Roëves on minor revisions to the original script. The play’s unexpected touching ending has remained the same.

“I fuse my film and stage techniques (of acting) in this one-man show so I can get a bigger reality,” said Roëves. “It’s going to be quite interesting to present ‘Just a Gigolo’ at The Cell, which is a very intimate theater. I’m kind of looking forward to that.”