STAGE REVIEW : ‘Yesterday’ Born Again in Pasadena

If classics are defined by their timelessness, certify “Born Yesterday” as the model of a very modern one. Not an original notion, certainly, but one that was solidly reconfirmed Sunday when the Pasadena Playhouse unveiled the latest incarnation of this 1946 Garson Kanin comedy.

“Born Yesterday” made its leading players at the time--Paul Douglas and especially Judy Holliday--thoroughly famous as the scrap-iron mogul Harry Brock and his airhead girlfriend, Billie Dawn, a woman who dares to develop a brain. Skeptics who cling to the idea that only one person can play a part superbly are urged to go to Pasadena and see David Schramm and Rebecca de Mornay take on the Douglas and Holliday roles.

They’ll be glad they did.

Not only is the story’s subplot about government corruption timely (scrap iron and Pentagon procurement scandals are only a mendacious breath apart), but Billie Dawn’s central rise from dumb blond to shrewd bunny when she’s exposed to a little book learnin’ is the kind of personal victory you have to love. Everyone wants the Eliza Doolittles of this world to get mad and get even.

Beyond the ineffable pleasure of watching intelligence blossom and take charge, there is, in the case of “Born Yesterday,” the added one of seeing it discomfit megalomania, coarseness and greed. When you can do that and create winning characters (Harry Brock has to be one of the winningest slobs in play-creation) and come up with consistently funny lines,you’ve got an unbeatable combination.

The gin game between Harry and Billie in Act I is so priceless that another writer, D. L. Coburn, wove his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “The Gin Game,” entirely around the same theme. This is not to imply a direct connection between the pieces, but it does attest to the merit of the idea.

Billie Dawn’s late-in-coming insistence on knowing exactly what are those documents that she’s being asked to sign by Brock’s attorney (James Noble in a skillfully wry and tragic portrayal of a man perpetually three sheets to the wind) is your standard comic demurrer. You’ll find it in commedia dell’arte, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello. It confounds Brock, derails his plans, triggers a senator’s downfall and crowns the play in a gloating vindication of justice.

It is simplistic wish fulfillment at its best in a carefully crafted piece. Astounding to think that this was Kanin’s first play (though he was no stranger to the art of comedy, having previously penned screenplays for “Adam’s Rib” and “Pat and Mike”). Astonishing, too, to realize that this is only De Mornay’s second stage role. Her Billie may be a bit bland and generic at the start, but she builds up a solid head of steam and sweeps grandly into her own by the second and, especially, the third acts.

The real surprise of this production, though, is Schramm who came to it late, after two other candidates for the role had come and gone. His portrayal is a true heir to Jackie Gleason: loud, blustery, swift, an ungrammatical ball of suet, as unaware of his arrogance as of his limitations. In spite of it all, Schramm succeeds in making Brock remarkably appealing--a sort of disconnected large pussycat, with the roar and the timing of the lion that he’s not.

Kanin saved his best writing for these unlikely protagonists, merely sketching in other characters as needed for support. Consequently, Richard Cox gives a journeyman account of himself as Paul Verrall, the high-minded, slightly colorless journalist hired to tutor Billie, if not to fall in love with her as he does.

Tom Hatten (as the corrupt senator), Carol Gustafson (a straight-talking maid), Tony Simotes (Harry’s harmless henchman) and a clutch of other actors in peripheral cameos all do nicely in severely limited roles.

Don Amendolia has done a seamless job of directing, in spite of replacing Stephen Rothman in the job three weeks ago, following a brouhaha that culminated in Rothman’s resignation as playhouse artistic co-director.

All production values are superior, from the stylishly Art Deco pink set by Cliff Faulkner and E. Scott Shaffer, to Martin Aronstein’s suffused lighting, Shigeru Yaji’s elegant ‘40s costumes and Jon Gottlieb’s careful sound design.

Despite all hurdles and hard won as it may have been, this revival’s a winner.

Performances at 39 S. El Molino Ave. in Pasadena run Tuesdays through Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sundays , 2 and 7 p.m., until July 17. Tickets: $17-$25; (818) 356-PLAY.