STAGE REVIEW : ‘Lu Ann’ Offers Flavor Over Substance

The thing about Preston Jones’ “Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander” is that Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander, as a character that’s supposed to carry a 2-hour show, is not all that intriguing.

As the first leg in Jones’ “A Texas Trilogy,” including “The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia” and “The Oldest Living Graduate,” this comedy set in West Texas follows Lu Ann from her high-school cheerleading days down through a couple of failed marriages.

But Jones’ depiction is so glancing that it’s hard to get involved. This is an outline of Lu Ann’s life, a quick sketch that neglects to tell us much about her or how she got to be the person she is. The jokes would be funnier if we felt more tied to Lu Ann.

At the Newport Theatre Arts Center, director William H. Waxman tries to overcome the play’s incompleteness by making it a work of pure flavor--the accents are heavy with twang and the production manages to have the meandering aura of small-town living.

Unfortunately, the show doesn’t go much further than that. After the ear and eye become accustomed to the accents and the vaguely idiosyncratic mannerisms, “Lu Ann” starts to drag.

As Lu Ann, Deborah-Leigh Schmidt is able to evoke something of the character’s changing personality as she grows from brash teen-ager to disillusioned, hard-drinking wife to wiser, more realistic middle-ager. What she fails to do is transcend Jones’ superficial script. That would be a difficult task, but a more complex performance might be able to do it.

The character that’s supposed to be the most compelling (next to Lu Ann, of course) is her loser brother, Skip. He heads down, too, from cocky nuisance to shaky alcoholic over the comedy’s course and is expected to draw our sympathy by the end. Mark Perkins does pretty well, especially in the latter stages when he shows something of Skip’s weakness.

The most interesting person here is Corky Oberlander (Mitchell Nunn), Lu Ann’s second husband, whom she met in a local dive. Nunn gives him a blue-collar worldliness that gets you wanting to know more about him, but Jones removes Corky after the second act, long before we have any idea of what he’s all about. In a play full of missed opportunities, Corky Oberlander is one of the most obvious.

On the production side, Jane Phillips Hobson’s lighting is simple and effective (especially so in the bar scene), but Jeffrey Dean Ault’s sets are too routine to add much. Why doesn’t Lu Ann’s living room tell us more about her or her family? In a play like this, all hints are welcome.

‘LU ANN HAMPTON LAVERTY OBERLANDER’

A Newport Theatre Arts Center production of Preston Jones’ comedy. Directed by William H. Waxman. With Deborah-Leigh Schmidt, Mark Perkins, Brooks Anne Hayes, Robert Halverson, Keith Baricovich, Bill Carden, Michael Hamontree, Patrick Emmett, Mitchell Nunn, Mark Rosenthal and Nicole Sanders. Sets by Jeffrey Dean Ault. Lighting by Jane Phillips Hobson. Sound by William J. Trousdale. Plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. through May 7 at 2501 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach. Tickets: $10. (714) 621-0288.