One-person plays inevitably attempt to achieve an air of intimacy as the performer onstage, in many cases playing a famous figure, talks directly to the audience in a confessional style. But shows such as this don’t get more intimate than the current revival of Jay Presson Allen’s Tru, about Truman Capote, starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Performed at the newish but actually very old venue House of the Redeemer, located in an Upper East Side mansion that once belonged to a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt, this production actually makes you feel like you’re sharing an up-close-and-personal encounter with the famed author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Ferguson, a stage animal who has the good fortune of being able to subsidize his theatrical work with those Modern Family residuals, inherits the role brilliantly played by a Tony-winning Robert Morse in the 1989 original Broadway production. He doesn’t try as hard as his predecessor to look like Capote, foregoing the extensive make-up and padding that Morse wore. But with his appropriately closely-cropped hair and the right eyeglasses he bears enough of a resemblance, and he’s got those distinctive vocal mannerisms down pat.
Tru was first performed a mere five years after Capote’s death, which gave it the slightly creepy feel of an exhumation. Now, nearly four decades later, the play has more of an historical, tragic feel as it depicts the lonely author during the 1975 Christmas season, cast off from the New York upper crust society to which he so desperately wanted to belong. His estrangement from Babe Paley, Slim Keith, and the other famous “swans” in his orbit stemmed from the publication of an excerpt from his ultimately unfinished roman à clef novel Answered Prayers. (The fallout with his friends was also the subject of 2024’s mini-series Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.)
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
We’re once again treated to 90 or so minutes with Capote in his New York City apartment, although his real-life abode at the modernist UN Plaza didn’t much look like the House of the Redeemer townhouse completed in 1916 (the palatial library was transported here from an Italian ducal palace built in the 1600s). But the venue suits him perfectly, especially as adorned with photos of Capote and a desk equipped with a vintage typewriter, courtesy of scenic designer Mike Harrison.
The production directed by Rob Ashford (Frozen, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) differs significantly from the original in another respect. As the show begins a chicly thin woman in a slinky black cocktail dress and a white mask enters the room, silently looking through books. Although she mostly figures as a silent witness to Capote, clearly evoking the “Swans” who cast him out after his perceived betrayal, she has occasional dialogue and at one point even dances elegantly. She’s played by two-time Tony nominee Charlotte d’Amboise (A Chorus Line, Chicago, Pippin) and while her presence doesn’t feel entirely necessary, she adds an evocatively haunting element to the proceedings.
When Ferguson’s Capote enters the room clad in a fur coat and fedora, his acerbic nature is instantly defined by the arrival of a holiday gift of poinsettias. Declaring the flowers to be “the Bob Goulet of botany,” he makes arrangements with his doorman to have them quickly them gotten rid of. He also exults in his still busy social life, boasting, “I’ve been to seven parties in two days. Not bad for a social pariah!”
But as he fulminates and dictates notes to his biographer Gerald Clarke, his dismay over his current situation becomes all too apparent. “All that brouhaha over one little chapter,” he laments. Drinking heavily but still displaying enough athleticism to jog to his bar, he broods over his faded reputation. “I used to be famous for writing books,” he says, holding a copy of In Cold Blood. “Now I’m famous for being famous.”
The play’s depiction of Capote doesn’t dig particularly deep, not offering much to those unfamiliar with the author’s literary output other than a colorful portrait of an eccentric figure in tragic decline. But it remains an engaging theatrical experience thanks to the vivid writing, much of it taken directly from Capote himself, and for the opportunity it provides for its performer. Ferguson makes the most of it, delivering a wonderfully entertaining portrayal that benefits greatly from the close proximity of the audience numbering less than a hundred. Restlessly wandering around the large room and often addressing people directly, the actor makes you feel as if you’re a treasured houseguest, even if he does take care to remove a supposedly valuable knickknack that might prove too tempting.
Tru opened March 19, 2026, at House of the Redeemer and runs through May 3. Tickets and information: truplaynyc.com
