STAGE REVIEW : What May Have Been a Good Idea Goes Down the Tube in ‘Channels’

Playwright Judith Fein had a better idea with her play “Channels” than either she or director Jules Aaron (at Long Beach’s International City Theatre) is able to deliver.

The premise is that a woman on the verge of mental breakdown begins to see her life as TV fodder. The channels of her mind become the channels of her TV set, with the alienating effect a logical metaphor for psychotic break. It’s a good idea that doesn’t work.

Anthropologist Jennifer (Marla Frumkin) has taken time off from work to relax, but she sits home all day watching the set. If she wasn’t breaking already (and indications are that she was), it would be enough to put her over the edge.

Before long she starts to see the people in her life as a string of series types, from her Goody Two-shoes husband Bob (Carey Eidel), to her aptly named sitcom friend Gabby (Becky Bonar), her game-show host lover Simon (Paul Ross) and her stately, eccentric mother (Morgan Lofting).

Partly because the characters are such cardboard creations, and partly because the actors cannot rise above the largely stilted writing--any more than director Aaron can--”Channels” keeps you switching off.

Bonar manages a nice breezy manner as the friend, but Eidel and Ross are programmed beyond endurance and adrift in their nonpersonas as husband and lover--Eidel as a robotic nonfather who always knows best and Ross as a sort of vapid-flamboyant Hugh Hefner perpetually making a deal.

In all this, Frumkin is the large exception. She comes through with a striking performance as the struggling, unraveling Jennifer, even achieving isolated moments of rich comedy (in particular her ghoulish projections of helplessness in an operating room). But it’s not enough to save the play. Judging from Aaron’s flawed production, Fein’s intentions simply outstrip her ability to realize them.

John Iacovelli’s revolving set and Paulie Jenkins’ lighting serve well enough.

Plays on the Long Beach City College campus, Harvey Way at Clark Avenue, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7:30 p.m., until Aug. 28. Tickets: $9; (213) 420-4275).