TV REVIEW : VIEW OF ‘BLUE WINDOW’ NOT AS LOVELY ON KCET

“It’s the wrong chemistry, the food isn’t ready and I look like a witch!” frets Libby (Randy Danson) in “Blue Window” tonight on American Playhouse (9 p.m., KCET-TV, Channel 28.)

Unexpectedly, however, Libby’s little get-together is a success. This isn’t a broken-dishes farce of the Alan Ayckbourn variety, but a wry study of the overtones of a Sunday night dinner party in the big city.

Libby’s guests are nice, bright people with interesting things to say, and they do their generous best to make the party happen. But there’s a certain melancholy in the air. Another weekend down the tubes.

Craig Lucas’ play was blue magic at South Coast Repertory in 1985. In re-directing it for TV with the original New York actors, Norman Rene could have simply photographed his production. Instead, he and Lucas have decided to make a real movie out of it.

A clean, brave choice, but it doesn’t work. The play was an unbroken ceremony. This is bits and pieces. We see into everybody’s apartment. We get close-ups of everybody’s reactions. But we miss something that the play’s groupings achieved quite easily on stage: a sense of the characters moving from separateness to a temporary togetherness, and back to solitary.

The rhythms of the party itself get chopped up. That champion guest, Boo (Jane Galloway) goes on with her nonsense, as before. But it’s not clear that she’s doing so to loosen up everybody else. And the close-ups overemphasize poor Libby’s embarrassment about her broken tooth. Every time we look at her, she’s shielding her mouth.

Only once does the camera deepen the play--the long close-up on quiet Emily (Maureen Silliman) as she sings. Her eyes tell us it’s not going out to anyone else.

Lucas’ characters and dialogue--certainly in authoritative hands here--may work their magic on those who don’t know the play. Theater people are likely to feel that “Blue Window” in a real apartment is as off-the-point as “Our Town” with a real soda fountain. It’s the wrong chemistry.