STAGE REVIEW : ‘Pearls’ Captures World War II Home Front

For many, the finest World War II movie is the one about what happened when the boys came back: “The Best Years of Our Lives.” Elizabeth Hansen’s play, “A String of Pearls,” is in many ways a kind of “Best Years” harbinger: War brides endure on the home front as best as they can.

Hansen, in the best humanist tradition, gives her women a lot of slack. At the Gypsy Playhouse, director Jill Andre’s cast has listened closely to the script--on and between the lines. In Hansen’s and Andre’s hands, there’s conflict, there are even minor outrages committed that make you want to scold the guilty party. But there are no easy targets here; this is an adult play (in spirit, not in X rating) about adults who each have a claim to our attention.

This is especially true of Mary Louise (Dina Murray), the kid half-sister of Maxine (Laurel Adams). Mary Louise’s adolescent brattiness develops into full-fledged narcissism over the play’s course of time from 1941 to 1945. Cheating on her husband isn’t condoned, but we can see how this is partly a declaration of independence from her overbearing sister.

Cheating isn’t in Maxine’s vocabulary, even at cards, for which she and her friends get together every Wednesday night at Janet’s New York apartment. If there is a truly nagging flaw in the play, it’s the unlikelihood that Maxine would have these friends in the first place. Their tastes tend to run to Macy’s, while Maxine’s lean to Cartier’s. She’s one of those people who would get on anyone’s nerves, even those of her tolerant companions.

Ultimately, though, tolerance and understanding are what “String of Pearls” is about. The real test of this is when Harriet (Carolyn Mignini), a sweet corn-pone type with her eyes on an NBC radio correspondent, finds out that he married while on assignment in London. On top of it, she’s the last one in her card circle to hear about it.

It does send Harriet into a tailspin, but since Hansen writes with a kind of caring, Capra-esque hand, Harriet bounces back. A later, post-funeral scene almost reduces the play to accusatory exchanges; yet, in the end, these women remember who their friends are.

The center of gravity is Janet, and Nancy Chris Evans gives her some added color while making sure she plays the perfect hostess and patient war bride. Adams and Murray spar with plenty of bad blood, but without the slightest hint of vulgar cattiness. Ruth Cordell, as the British bride with whom Harriet must learn to live, has a stunning monologue about surviving the bombing of Coventry that momentarily puts this home-front story on the front lines.

Mignini’s Harriet is the most charming and most-felt creation, a performance that reveals how a woman running out of available male candidates is able to live with the cards life deals her. You tend to admire this Harriet all the more when you think what men in the same situation would do.

This is not great literature, but all elements here combine to reveal a very good example of what small theater in this town (in the shadows of NBC, Disney and Burbank Studios, no less) can do with few funds. Listen to sound designer James Doede’s radio effects, or observe Greg Parry’s meticulous costumes (especially Mary Louise’s teen-age-to-military service-to high-style changes). When you hear people using that ubiquitous phrase dedication to craft , the work in “String of Pearls” is what they’re talking about.

At 3321 W. Olive Ave., Burbank, on Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2 p.m., through Jan. 29. Tickets: $10; (818) 954-9858.