STAGE REVIEW : Greenberg Hit Gets Solid Ride at North Coast

“Eastern Standard” is one of those rare beasts in modern theater: a truly contemporary urban comedy.

Set in 1987, a Broadway hit in 1989, Richard Greenberg’s play paints a serio-comic picture of yuppie life in Manhattan that transfers remarkably well to San Diego, thanks to a smart, well-paced production by the North Coast Repertory Theatre.

At the heart of the story is an attempt by two couples, one straight and one gay, to find meaning and love and a reason to live within the gilded edges of their privileged lives.

Stephen, a well-to-do architect, looks at the office buildings he creates and blames himself for urban blight. Before the play starts in a trendy Manhattan restaurant, we find out that he tried to kill himself by swallowing a bottle of pills. Drew, his gay and wisecracking friend, is a painter. Both are lonely and looking for love, but since one is straight and one is gay, it’s clear that they are not going to find it with each other.

Enter Phoebe, a regular at the restaurant, whom Stephen has been eyeing for weeks. She turns out to be a financial analyst trying to break off a romantic connection with a financial wheeler dealer who seems to be headed for jail. And then there’s a mysterious man who joins Phoebe. He turns out to be her gay brother, Peter, who has his own successful career as a television producer.

Sounds like two matches made in heaven?

Wait.

Greenberg has a couple of complications to throw into the mix. Someone has AIDS. Someone has a fear of commitment. Someone has a desire to heal the world, starting with a young waitress who aspires to be an actress and an angry, foul-mouthed homeless woman.

And soon the playwright, between the laughs, is prodding one to think about the flip side of love and trust and promises. Just what is the difference between doing the nice thing and doing the right thing? At what point do you hurt more than you help when you lead people to expect things that you never intended to follow through on?

The direction by Dan Yurgaitis is crisp and sure. Yurgaitis, a director at United States International University, also pulled half of his talented cast--who seem to be just a wee bit green to be playing 30--from the school’s senior class: Jonathan Gonzales, who plays Stephen as a guilt-ridden idealist in search of a mission; Matt Holt, who provides the moral center as the ironic observer, Drew; and Wendy Pitts, who mixes intelligence and sultriness in such an irresistible way as Phoebe that you begin to understand why Stephen puts up with the fact that she clearly can’t be trusted.

Derek Harrison Hurd brings a moving depth of feeling to Peter, who finds himself falling in love with Drew despite himself. Marianne Karstrand is appropriately eager and naive as the waitress who thinks she has found a home with these people, but needs to tone down the antic skipping and running that makes her seem more like a child than a woman panicked about approaching a critical point in her life.

But it is Diane Thrasher as the homeless woman, May, who steals the show with a powerful blast of authenticity. Thrasher performs her part with grit and anger, even dignity. She makes you understand who this woman is and why she does what she does--even when she does what is clearly the “wrong” thing. And with the haunted, hunted look in her eyes as she stares at the other characters, she makes you understand who these yuppie couples are and why they can’t get away with some of the feel-good deeds they are doing to assuage their consciences.

“What do you want out of life?” Phoebe asks May.

“Money,” the woman says. And then when May asks Phoebe what she wants, Phoebe tells her she wants to be “happy.”

May gets a good, long laugh out of that.

The trendy restaurant set contrasts nicely with the beach house set, both elegantly designed by Ocie Robinson, who quietly has been pulling superb work out of a limited budget for the North Coast Rep for a long time now.

The sound by Marvin Read helps to create an atmosphere of a crowded restaurant in the first act; more could be done in the second half to suggest the beach environment. The costumes by John-Bryan Davis are subtle and appropriate without drawing attention to themselves. But some of the lighting choices by Terry Price seem jerky and abrupt.

Still, the flaws in this production are remarkably minor. To its credit, North Coast has held “Eastern Standard” up to a Western standard that works.

‘EASTERN STANDARD’

By Richard Greenberg. Director is Daniel Yurgaitis. Sets by Ocie Robinson. Lighting by Terry Price. Sound by Marvin Read. Costumes by John-Bryan Davis. With Jonathan Gonzales, Matt Holt, Wendy Pitts, Derek Harrison Hurd, Marianne Karstrand and Diane Thrasher. At 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 7 p.m. Sundays with Sunday matinees at 2 through Oct. 27. At 987D Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. (619) 481-1055.