STAGE REVIEW : Eastman Keeps ‘Smoke’ Burning

Christine Lahti is pregnant, and doesn’t perform the Thursday matinees of “Summer and Smoke” at the Ahmanson. Instead the role of Miss Alma is taken by Carol Potter Eastman.

Eastman gives a real performance, not a standby one. Those who found Lahti’s Miss Alma too broad may even prefer Eastman’s approach. Where Lahti has overtones of Carol Burnett, Eastman brings to mind Julie Andrews. Delicate. Clear. Secure.

The basic thrust is the same. Eastman/Lahti’s Miss Alma isn’t a suppressed hysteric. She’s a healthy young woman who is starting to take her life into her own hands. If she fails to land the wild young doctor next door (Christopher Reeve does not get matinees off), that’s because she has come late to the game. She’ll do better next time.

This is not “Summer and Smoke” as we know it, but it was certainly to the taste of one Thursday’s matinee crowd at the Ahmanson. They couldn’t have rooted harder for Eastman if she were their own daughter. On the line “Remember, Miss Alma, you promised to sing at our wedding,” they actually groaned. Talk about rubbing it in!

Since director Marshall Mason has turned Tennessee Williams’ play into daytime drama, it seems particularly appropriate to see it on a Thursday afternoon. Anyway, Eastman knows her business.