THEATER REVIEW : Nostalgia Unfulfilled by ‘Kilts’ at Lamb’s

In “Kilts,” premiering at the Lamb’s Players Theatre and running through Sept. 11, playwright David McFadzean offers a warm, nostalgic look back at a Scottish-American family living in a sleepy Kentucky town during World War I.

Elegantly produced under the skillful direction of the Lamb’s artistic director, Robert Smyth, the story is easy on the eyes and ears. But like emotional fast food, when the final bows are taken, it leaves you wondering, “Where’s the beef?”

At several junctures, one starts rooting for the playwright to take a chance and finally reveal something about life and these supremely likable characters that we don’t already know. But each time, he turns away with a charming gesture or phrase and smothers the sparks before they catch and blaze into creative fire.

It wouldn’t be so frustrating if the characters and their situation didn’t offer up so many avenues for exploration.

Resident company members Kerry Cederberg and Deborah Gilmour Smyth play Adele and Flora, two sisters cut from very different cloth, who are planning a birthday party for their father.

Cederberg’s Adele is a 35-year-old stay-at-home widow with a 10-year-old boy, Andrew (charmingly played by Cederberg’s own 9-year-old son, Erik Christian), while Smyth portrays a vaudeville performer of whose life style, the father, a Presbyterian minister, purportedly disapproves.

It’s typical of the unfinished feel to this play that we never actually get to meet the patriarch and find out for ourselves how he feels about his children and how they feel about him.

Ken Wagner rounds out the family unit as the alcoholic brother, Jamie.

But don’t worry about Jamie being too dark a blot on this family’s golden halo. Jamie is a nice drunk. He only took to the bottle because his wife--”a woman known all over town”--left him. And he’s so sweet, he still loves her just as he loves his two sisters who love each other except when they clash, briefly, about Flora being just a bit too bossy, and Adele being a bit too fuddy-duddy.

It’s not that every family play has to have the violent undercurrents of “Crimes of the Heart” or “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” But even genuine period pieces such as “Morning’s At Seven,” show, subtly, the battle lines that, inevitably, are drawn and fought over in even the most loving families.

Similarly, unlike “The Human Comedy,” one of the most magical fairy tale-like paeans to family love, “Kilts” does not even seem up to portraying the harshness of war in the outside world.

A wounded lieutenant, played with winning gentleness by David Cochran Heath, is one of two gentleman calling on the two sisters. (Not too much suspense as to the possibility of happy endings here.) But the lieutenant’s hand injury is not readily apparent and if the war has wounded this fellow’s spirit, that is not evident, either.

Only Andrew, the young boy, reminds us of the cost of war by reciting a list of the dead people he knows. But the names are not personalized by any reminiscences and the promising moment, like so many in this play, comes and goes all too swiftly.

Veronica Smith’s pretty period costumes enhance Mike Buckley’s set, a charming marriage between the real and surreal--a worn back porch dirt back yard, and a house with sawed-off walls. And the performances are uniformly appealing, from Robert Smyth as the tongue-tied doctor in love, to Cederberg as the restrained widow and Deborah Gilmour Smyth as her unrestrained counterpart, the two sisters striking common chords--literally--only when they join each other in lovely a cappella singing.

It is curious that in the play’s program, McFadzean’s work is compared to that of Horton Foote and Flannery O’Connor, two writers who well knew that without the contrast of darkness, you cannot portray light.

“KILTS” by David McFadzean. Director is Robert Smyth. Set and lighting by Mike Buckley. Costumes by Veronica Murphy Smith. Stage manager is Mark Coterill. With Erik Christian, Ken Wagner, Kerry Cederberg, Robert Smyth, Deborah Gilmour Smyth and David Cochran Heath. At 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays with Saturday-Sunday matinees at 2 through Sept. 11. At 500 Plaza Blvd., National City.