‘Juno’s Swans’ Doesn’t Lay an Egg, But It Isn’t Quite Golden, Either

E. Katherine Kerr’s “Juno’s Swans” is a lightly entertaining play about two adult sisters attempting to resolve their lifelong differences.

The play works well enough, especially in the early going when the sisters’ polarized relationship is defined, but the biggest obstacle for audiences may be determining how “Juno’s Swans” is to be taken--as serious comedy or funny drama.

The San Diego Actors Theatre production of “Juno’s Swans,” at the Sixth Avenue Theatre through March 26, attempts to probe some universal issues of sibling rivalry. But ultimately, the sisters, Cary and Cecil, are sabotaged on stage by the stereotypes Kerr has created for them.

Cary is the ubiquitous struggling New York City actress, and Cecil is the up-tight suburban housewife, the older, aloof sister who stayed behind to raise a family.

Still, “Juno’s Swans” offers some pleasures.

Designer Chuck McCall’s wonderfully funky, New York studio apartment adds a comic tone, summing up Cary’s bohemian life style. Cary stews in growing paranoia between tryouts and rehearsals, amid a swirl of empty pizza boxes, Chinese carry-out cartons, stacks of newspapers and her own tossed-off clothing.

Cary, played with comic anger and frustration by Amy Simon, survives on the odd industrial film, TV commercial and soap opera role, but mostly she lives on hope for what the next audition will bring.

Into Cary’s life--like the Black Death--comes bland sister Cecil (short for Cecilia), on a visit from home. Cecil has a husband, two teen-agers and a life of middle-class respectability (the better to clash with), and Patricia Elmore endows her with a rigid propriety that offers a too-easy contrast to the obstreperous Cary.

The interest here is the secret jealousies the sisters seem to harbor for each other’s lives. Success is measured differently from different vantage points, and so is failure. Having these jealousies revealed to them eventually begins to nourish the sisters’ relationship and lower the walls they had built between them in earlier years.

In a way, “Juno’s Swans” offers a balm for the thousands of artists struggling in exile away from home. But there isn’t enough meat here for that theme to be taken very seriously.

James Manley’s staging doesn’t help matters, either. One suspects that had he made “Juno’s Swans” a convincing comedy, it would be a more successful evening in the theater.

Otherwise the production is generally creditable. Joan Foster’s costumes are perfect for every character and Barth Ballard’s lighting enhances McCall’s set design.

While Simon is tentative as Cary in the scenes when she has to mime emotions, she portrays verbal anger quite well.

Ron Lang is lovable as Doug, Cary’s composer-drug pusher friend who is caught between the feuding sisters. Again, one senses in Elmore’s fine performance as Cecil that the play’s natural impulses are comic.

“JUNO’S SWANS”

“JUNO’S SWANS” by E. Katherine Kerr. Directed by James Manley. Scenic design by Chuck McCall. Lighting design by Barth Ballard. Costume design by Joan Foster. Stage managed by Kathleen Maness, with James Manley, Amy Simon, Ron Lang, Patricia Elmore and Robert Bar-tholomew. Produced by the San Diego Actors Theatre at the Sixth Avenue Playhouse, 1626 6th Ave. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday through March 26.