STAGE REVIEW : Too Much Patter in ‘Meetin’s on the Porch’

There’s no settling the matter of whether playwrights should direct their own plays. Some should, some shouldn’t. But when the playwright has been primarily a director all his life you would think it might be relatively safe. When this playwright also solicits the help of another director, you would think it would be a form of production insurance. No such thing.

“Meetin’s on the Porch,” a first play by long-time director Donald MacKechnie, staged by him and co-director Richard Olivier at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills, only proves that you never can tell.

It would help, of course, if the play itself were better. MacKechnie, a Los Angeles resident but Scottish by birth, has written about three durable farm women from the Midwest--an unlikely subject.

The play is much about his own mother, as he tells us in a dedication to her. That may be what lends “Meetin’s on the Porch” its occasional flashes of tenderness. But for the most part this is an unpersuasive, three-hour ramble about lifelong friends who use the phrase “I reckon” as a badge of Midwestern certification, share secrets, share experiences and, once at least, a husband. In short, a vehicle for three actresses.

Three good ones, in this case--Susan Clark, Patty Duke and Carrie Snodgress--whose considerable talents are too often muffled here under stretches of vacant or pontificating dialogue and by direction that has not been kind.

Duke is Jenny, a sturdy young woman who grows into a solid and upstanding wife and mother, given to waspishness in her old age. Clark is Haley, the steadiest, most even-tempered, least surprising of the lot. Snodgress is Amy, a fragile, wired creature, who turns into a full-blown neurotic as events press in, the years wear on and a mess of grandchildren overwhelm her.

For no particularly organic reason, MacKechnie’s play jumps around the century beginning in 1928, going to 1917, lunging to 1986, falling back to 1945. The dialogue chatters and noodles and beavers on. It has moments of gossipy humor, turns of events that mean to be startling but broadcast their arrival well ahead, and connections within the three-way relationship that are a bit strange, but no odder than real life so often turns out to be.

A finale that includes the sound of the atom bomb bursting over Hiroshima is tacked on to no useful purpose. It merely continues an ill-disguised pattern in the play of using the dialogue or the events to superimpose the playwright’s own, abundant opinions. Besides which MacKechnie applies them only cosmetically. They remain foreign particles, never fully integrated into the fabric of the characters or the piece.

No expense was spared on trappings. There is a realistic front porch set by D Martyn Bookwalter that lets you feel its age and almost lets you smell the grass. There are appropriately dowdy and sometimes humorous costumes by Nancy Jo Smith.

Unhappily, Olivier and McKechnie-the-director have indulged (and, in a way, betrayed) rather than guided the performers, too frequently allowing them cutesy double takes and cutesy aging. A flintier hand might have helped shape and chisel roles that mostly drift. Better direction might have improved matters. It would not have turned this lightweight exercise into a champ.

At 205 N. Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees Saturdays and Sundays, 3 p.m. Until March 4. Tickets: $25-$28.50; (213) 480-3232, (714) 740-2000.