STAGE REVIEW : Logic Goes Right out ‘Window’ : It doesn’t make sense that Joyce Glen’s spunky, ambitious heroine wouldn’t have gotten rid of all these jerks a lot sooner.

The heroine of “In the Window,” Joyce Glen’s messy and long-winded drama in its world premiere at Cal State Fullerton, is a borderline man-hater. Sally Anderson finds the guys so unenlightened, uncaring and downright misogynistic that it’s a shock when she finally falls for one at play’s end.

Up to that point, we’ve heard her complain for much of three hours about how these beasts in long pants have kept her from realizing her dreams.

There’s her husband (Brett Shuemaker), a conniving, womanizing creep who took her on just to get ahead in her family’s construction business. There’s her father (Wade Williamson), a lying, cheating bore who tricks her into staying married and doing her duty as a good wife. There’s her wimpy brother-in-law (Darrin Shaughnessy), who loses his slimy veneer only after Sally steps in.

Yep, Sally carries a grudge, all right. The play starts off in the 1950s; we’re supposed to see all her anger as the product of a more narrow-minded time, when women were forced into lifestyles that didn’t always let them express themselves. OK, we can buy that, though it is a rather shopworn point, hammered home relentlessly here.

Still, given that Sally is written as such a spunky, ambitious, single-minded super-woman, one has to wonder why she doesn’t just tell all these bozos to take a hike and get on with her life. Her desire is to be an engineer, not a housewife, but she stays at home and pines. Nearly 20 years go by before she makes an important move. Why the wait?

Glen never offers a convincing argument for Sally’s decision to stick with the status quo. Is it societal conditioning--or does it have more to do with the gimmicky plot device Glen tosses in, that Sally won’t be able to get her full inheritance if she leaves her husband? To make matters worse, Joni Davis gives Sally a distracted, almost flaky air that runs against her supposed dynamism. Maybe if Sally were really a little more heroic, we’d care more.

Though primarily angled toward the women’s-rights movement, “In the Window” goes off in other, odd directions. As it spans two decades, it tries to become an almost-epic tale of bad family blood: The Anderson clan fights and abuses one another from the first ring of the bell to the last. Glen tries to toss in relevancy via such awkward scenes as those involving her brother (Jeremy Johnson) and the Vietnam War. But she ends up with a mean-spirited affair that could have used about an hour’s worth of editing.

The obviousness of the script is not mitigated by Michael J. Kane’s direction or by the uneasiness of his cast, who often seem flummoxed by the goings-on. Nor are things helped by symbols that smack you in the face (the Byrds’ “Turn, Turn, Turn” swells up just before a scene, to be sure that we know a change is coming in Sally’s life).

There are other glaring errors in staging, such as the brick facade provided by set designer Jason Touchman as a backdrop for some heated dialogue between Sally’s brother and a fellow soldier in Vietnam. These guys are supposed to be in country, the roughest jungle where the firefights rage, and they’re leaning against a brick wall?

The production does have one thing going for it, though: As Vicki, Sally’s gin-guzzling, man-gobbling sister, Jodi Julian is an unharnessed hoot. Becoming increasingly nasty and undone as the play goes on, she had the audience howling.

‘IN THE WINDOW’

The premiere production of a play by Joyce Glen. Directed at Cal State Fullerton by Michael J. Kane. With Joni Davis, Wade Williamson, Angela Juhl, Jodi Julian, Jeremy Johnson, Brett Shuemaker, Darrin Shaughnessy, Marcy McClelland, Jamison Jones, Mari Wahlster and Michelle Orlie. Sets by Jason Touchman. Costumes by Janice Kidwell. Lighting by Bill Magdziarz. Tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Arena Theatre on the CSUF campus, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Tickets: $4 and $5. (714) 773-3371.