THEATER REVIEW : PLAYHOUSE GETTING WARMER WITH ‘SILVER WHISTLE’

The Mission Playhouse is slowly awakening from its long slumber.

Things seem a little more settled in the new, 99-seat Marina Village home of the resurrected theater, and the company’s second effort, “The Silver Whistle,” is more solid than its comeback staging of “Top Girls” earlier this year.

The Robert E. McEnroe comedy spritzes a wonderfully innocent idealism into the air through the simple story of a tramp who invites himself into an old folks home, in disguise of course, then proceeds to alert everyone to the joie de vivre they have buried under too many layers of despair and boredom.

McEnroe’s play settles lightly upon the mind. It may not challenge, but it does refresh the spirit just as the likable bum Oliver Erwenter (played by James Byrne) would wish. With its celebration of life, “The Silver Whistle” seems a most appropriate play for director Edythe Pirazzini, who came out of retirement to reopen the theater that had for many years made her one of San Diego’s most active and controversial producers.

Finding still unknown but promising scripts that offer good roles has always been Pirazzini’s forte. But McEnroe doesn’t quite fulfill the promise of his gentle little play, borrowing a bit too heavily from the free-spirited poets Oliver admires. His dialogue too often clings and sticks to itself in gooey poetry or overly romanticized soliloquies, and his plot holds no surprises.

Some of his characters, particularly the members of the clergy whom the playwright first takes to task for their dryly restrictive attitudes, end up being caricatures of goodness brought out suddenly to make the happy ending work.

That said, it is important to know that the goo can be overlooked, and a very pleasant evening is available for anyone who likes to be lifted into a play’s inspirational qualities. It would be hard to watch this play and not leave with your own “silver whistle” polished-- that bright ornament that we each possess, inside, to play whatever happy tune we so desire.

Oliver/Wilfred dazzles the oldsters with elaborate lies about his worldwide adventures and his amazing virility for a man of 77, the age he claims. Actually, he’s not yet 50, his “real” name is Wilfred Tassbinder, and he’s never wandered far from a park bench, according to his tramp friend Emmett (Howard Muhleman), who appears soon enough to be a threat to Oliver’s fun.

Byrne is charming, suave, handsome and possessed of the proper sincerity to play Oliver. His performance gives strength to the production, as do the host of character actors Pirazzini has rounded up to play the old folks.

Millie Rankin and Jane Hopf are the most lovably cranky. Jerry Moorehead and George Demetre bring back memories of the film “Cocoon” with their eager pursuit of Oliver’s promised youth potion. Anne Snyder and Trish Larson liven the interaction, Snyder as a white-haired flirt, Larson as a hard-of-hearing drunk with a bottle stashed somewhere in the pensioners’ home.

The young folks in this production don’t fare as well.

Belle Marie DuCharme, who plays a young woman who runs the home and falls for Oliver, wears hard heels on the hollow platform set which quickly and loudly destroy the “garden” illusion. This is not entirely her fault, but the shoes are a good metaphor for her performance--just a little too rigid, a little too formal for this small theater.

Her fiance, Reverend Watson, never comes to life at all in the hands of Mark Chase. Muhleman is funny as Emmett (funnier if he mugged a little less), and Bill Pease and Joseph Ratliff are just adequate in small roles as a bishop and a Catholic priest.

Set designer Dick Snyder’s wilted flower garden shows off the theater’s progress in adapting to its tiny stage, plastic gel windows and noisy shoes notwithstanding. The lovely “pipe and whistle” music between scenes adds the perfect, sprightly touch to highlight the humanistic theme.

Although McEnroe’s script needs some fine-tuning (less flower, more originality), and there are some weak points among the cast, “The Silver Whistle” is a pleasant diversion, a nice summer play for a theater warming up.

“THE SILVER WHISTLE” By Robert E. McEnroe. Directed by Edythe Pirazzini. Technical director/set designer, Dick Snyder. Lighting and sound by Brian and Cindi Van de Wetering, Robert Cadamy, Zach Ehrenfreund. With Jerry Moorehead, Millie Rankin, Trish Larson, Belle Marie DuCharme, Mark Chase, Anne Snyder, Jane Hopf, George Demetre, James Bryne, Howard Muhleman, Bill Pease, Joseph Ratliff. Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., through July 12, at the Mission Playhouse, 1936 Quivira Way, Marina Village.