Now playing at The Montgomery Playhouse (to 1/24), Charles Busch's dark comedy The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, is one that is both cautionary and tall, part "Be careful of what you wish for" and part Forrest Gump.  Mr. Busch's vision of the human condition - played out previously in campy shows such as Psycho Beach Party, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, and Die Mommie, Die - has been cleaned up in this crossover (!) mainstream Broadway romp which garnered several Tony Award nominations in 2001 (Play, Actress, Featured Actress). 

This hoot of a script features a cast of needy characters all into reinventing themselves.  Everyone wants to be something she or he is not.  They feel free to attack each other, but just let someone outside of the unit - person or group attack them individually or collectively - they strike back, and hard.

As the play opens, histrionic (one can imagine Mr. Busch essaying the role) Marjorie Taub (Joy Cecilly Gerst) is in a deep funk.  In the soul of this upper West Side housewife, and former business major, lurk an artist and philosopher.  Her cultural agenda - and intellectual luminaries - are a veritable who's who in the humanities (patrons of a certain age will wax nostalgic over these canonic writers and thinkers). She's got (or attempts to get) everyone marching to her tune, including her retired physician husband Ira (Steve Snapp), an Albert Schweitzer-type (and Saint), volunteering his medical time and services for the poor and disadvantaged; a door man/handyman Mohammed (Sonie Mathew), forever on call for family meltdowns; and a resentful mother Freida (Sonya Okin), whose intestinal complaints vie with her slim maternal instincts.  Mother - Daughter dynamics seem primed for a Golden Girls showdown, when an outsider appears at the door, from the long-lost past, named Lee (Lennie Magida).   It turns out that Lee is the former Lillian Greenblatt who has moved on from her provincial youth of the Bronx to the wider world.   While Marjorie invokes the names of the greats of the past, Lee recounts her shared experience with those of the near present. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.          

The realization of Everywoman's fantasy best friend (and alter ego), who has a worm's eye view of celebrity and history, seems too good to be true.  And both Ira and Frieda and later Mohammed question her motives, if not her reality (is she a figment of Marjorie's clearly overheated imagination?) But quicker than a stir fry, Lee materializes for everyone and insinuates herself into the household.   Act 2 will serve up a seduction scene; check fraud scheme; "outing"; and transformation, as names are delightfully dropped till the set goes dark.  Was Lee real or was she the golem, an artificially created human, supernaturally summoned forth by Marjorie and her world's felt need?  The answer for us "is both simple and difficult ...Like so much in life."

The ingredients were there but unfortunately the show did not click.  Director Bruce Hirsch's uneven production has trouble getting going and when it finally does, it bogs down.  Some of the casting choices were problematic - and the character interactions were at times unconvincing, particularly the mother and daughter.  There was a problem with timing - crucial in comedy - with a rushing of lines and actors not getting all the laughs they should have from the script.    The show simply was not ready for an audience and only at the dress rehearsal stage on my visit Sunday (1/10).

Nonetheless, Ms. Magida, looking a little like Diane Keaton in her younger days, gave her character a wide-eyed, deceptively innocent appeal.  And her seductive move on the couple, into an improvised threesome, is hilarious.  Mr. Snapp played his character as alternatively patient, exasperated, and delightfully bug-eyed.

The visually attractive set designed by David Jones reflects a modern upscale look, with a purple-green palette, which the costumes of Jane Squier Bruns effectively complement.  The set is deep - perhaps too deep for this small space (99 seats) - and you lose something when the action is upstage.  Designer Matthew Datcher provided a pleasant combination of jazz and big band music between extended scene changes, moving to the funkier arrangements when the action intensified, while fluidly lighting Kay Coupe's well dressed stage.         

Sound check:  Excellent

Program notes: Average, would have benefitted from director and/or dramaturg comments

Applause meter: 2 hands. If you are unfamiliar with The Tale, this is an opportunity to see it on its feet.  The production should improve as the lines and roles become more familiar to the actors.

Runtime: About 2 hours and 15 minutes with an intermission

Photo credits: Kay Coupe

© John F. Glass January 11, 2010. All rights reserved.