STAGE REVIEW : A Chorus of Approval for Ayckbourn’s Backstage Comedy

I’ve got to get colleague Michael Wilmington down to South Coast Repertory to see “A Chorus of Disapproval.” Reviewing the film version last week, Wilmington suggested that the story was probably a good deal funnier without frantic close-ups.

Exactly. Alan Ayckbourn’s characters are wonderfully funny at South Coast, but they never ask for a laugh. In fact, a laugh is the last thing they want. How hard Ayckbourn’s characters strive not to make fools of themselves, and how seldom they succeed!

And although their creator is sorry for his creatures (particularly the females), he’s not awash with compassion. They may be nice people, but that’s not to say that they are good people. What crooks, what rogues, what rascals, these mortals be. In a small way, of course.

“A Chorus of Disapproval” is set in a town large enough to maintain an amateur light-opera group and small enough to make the arrangement of an extramarital affair difficult. This doesn’t stop those inclined to such affairs, and the high season seems to coincide with the rehearsal of the annual light opera, here a revival of John Gay’s “The Beggars’ Opera” (1728).

Who will play Macheath? Certainly not the cringing little fellow who forces himself to try out for a part as a step in recovering from the recent death of his wife. Actor Joe Spano makes him a man who would have some difficulty asking his neighbor to pass the butter. It’s impossible to see him as an 18th-Century rake.

In the immortal way of community-theater rehearsals, however, everything that can go wrong does. (Ayckbourn has run a small theater in the seaside town of Scarborough for 20 years, and only has to consult his diary here.) The part goes to . . . guess who.

That might be enough for a funny one-joke play. But the joke gets better. Our hero also finds himself playing the role of Macheath offstage, more through the efforts of the ladies involved (including the director’s wife, Caroline Smith) than through his own.

Here we might think of Norman in Ayckbourn’s “The Norman Conquests,” another unprepossessing little man with a talent for pleasing the girls. But where Norman thought of himself as spreading joy, Spano makes it comically clear that our hero hardly thinks at all. He simply goes along with it-- a Macheath by default.

He is also an honest man, and that gets him into trouble with the husbands. The end of the play, and also the beginning, shows what happens on opening night. An earlier Ayckbourn might have made it a catastrophe, with the set falling down and the actors bumping into each other. The mature Ayckbourn has something else in mind.

In retrospect, this is a sad story. In the moment, David Emmes’ SCR cast makes it a wonderfully entertaining evening. There’s the fun of watching David Schramm trying to lash his amateurs into the semblance of a performance--if only they were professionals, so he could fire them!--and the parallel fun of watching Spano innocently falling prey to the ladies, including Anni Long, who has an extremely modern arrangement with her husband, Jarion Monroe.

Whether any of this is from Ayckbourn’s diary, one doesn’t know, but it feels observed, and the performances are equally observant. Note, for instance, how seldom the listener catches anyone forcing a British accent. The accent is simply there, and we can listen to the character.

At the same time, we’re aware that we are watching our favorite Southern California rep company, together again for the 81st time, and as fresh as ever--Hal Landon Jr., for instance, a nice old gentlemen who bursts into tears if bullied, which guarantees that Schramm, a manly chap, will bully him.

Anyone who feels that Ayckbourn takes too dour a view of the human race simply hasn’t been on the planet long enough. But while we’re wincing, we’re also smiling--guilty creatures at the play. Beautifully designed by Michael Devine (sets) and Susan Denison Geller (costumes--including some charmingly cheesy ones), “A Chorus of Disapproval” loses nothing in the original.

Plays at 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, Tuesdays-Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Closes Oct. 15. Tickets $21-$28. (714) 957-4033.

‘A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL’

Alan Ayckbourn’s play, at South Coast Repertory. Director David Emmes. Scenic design Michael Devine. Costumes Susan Denison Geller. Lighting Tom Ruzika. Musical direction Dennis Castellano. Choreography Linda Kostalik-Boussom. Production manager Paul Hammon. Stage manager Bonnie Lorenger. With Joe Spano, David Schramm, Caroline Smith, Jarion Monroe, Anni Long, Don Took, Sally Kemp, Hal Landon Jr., Mary Anne McGarry, Katrin Nicolson, Kamella Tate, Richard D. Cross, John Ellington and Art Koustik.