STAGE REVIEW : ‘Lyon’s Tale’ as Dysfunctional as Its Subjects

Playwright Reid Baer began working on his comedy “A Lyon’s Tale” about 10 years ago.

The play has been put through workshops and revised extensively in that decade, but don’t let that impress you--this play is nowhere near ready for the professional stage.

Nonetheless, the Lionshare Production comedy received its world premiere Friday night at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, which often rents its small space to outside troupes. In the past, however, the productions have been much more polished, including the recent Ensemble Arts Theatre’s compelling “The Lady and the Clarinet.”

“A Lyon’s Tale,” billed as a “scathingly funny” play, is neither scathing nor funny. The play deals with the problems of a dysfunctional family in a random, uninteresting fashion and sheds little light on the subject. Further, there is absolutely no reason to care about any of the characters in the play, particularly the central figures.

On Sunday night, the two-hour production seemed to last forever. The play itself will not enjoy such longevity.

Baer’s play revolves around the engaged couple Holly Lyon (Anne M. Lutz) and Chris Jones (Bob Duch). Holly is preparing to introduce Chris to her family--her “dysfunctional” family--and is justifiably worried. Sister Suzie (Joyce Almond) is a notorious flirt and gave birth to an illegitimate child; Mom (Jo Coffey) has a history of reckless, alcohol-inspired binges; and Dad (Marty Murphy) is just plain weird.

The big meeting is enacted three times--once in Holly’s imagination, once in a dream and once in “reality.” Baer’s repetition concept seems clever enough, but it is executed poorly. The three scenes, which make up the entire first act, are blatant, unsuccessful attempts at humor. The scenes don’t seem to have any point other than reiterating that an imagined situation and the actual situation are two different things.

Act II is even less focused and harder to follow. The action shifts to seven years later, Holly and Chris are married, and their relationship is on the verge of collapse. A series of bizarre, loosely connected scenes populates the second half of the show, and all sense of plot or character erodes quickly.

Toward the end of the play, the entire family is threatening to kill one another, brandishing weapons and spouting accusations. Before anyone can pull the trigger, Suzie happens upon the scene with her illegitimate child, a child she put up for adoption but somehow retrieved from adoption-land. The entire family stops feuding, crowds around the child, and everything is swell again.

Chris turns to the audience, explains that families can be hard to deal with, but, in the end, it’s worth all the trouble.

This play isn’t. To top off the other problems, Baer’s message is somewhat offensive: The playwright seems to suggest that people who come from problematic families are destined to fail in their own relationships later in life. The playwright doesn’t support this theory, he just states it over and over in “A Lyon’s Tale.”

The performances is this show are surprisingly weak--surprisingly, because San Diego is so rich with acting talent. None of the cast members salvaged anything noteworthy. Granted, poor scripts breed poor performances, but these actors played far below community-theater level.

Ticket prices, incidentally, are set at a strictly professional scale.

As central figure, Chris Jones, Duch is too relaxed and bland to generate any sense of drama. Duch plays the strait-laced good guy who is “victimized” by the dysfunctional family product Holly, but he is eminently unsympathetic throughout the evening.

Lutz works hard trying to create an interesting neurotic in Holly, but cannot. Her character is forever roaming about the stage, complaining and whining about life and never doing anything about it. In Lutz’s case, the role, not the performer, should take the blame for the shoddy performance.

The amateurish feel permeating this production carried on even after the play was over. After taking his bows Sunday, one of the actors rushed to the theater lobby and beseeched the exiting theatergoers: “Did you like the show?”

Ummmm ...

Apparently, this performer didn’t accept that applause--a polite smattering in this case--is how the audience communicates its reaction. If you stop patrons and ask them what they think, they might feel inclined to tell you.

Worse yet, they might lie to hide their embarrassment. The truth hurts.

“A LYON’S TALE”

By Reid Baer. Director is Kevin P. Mullin. Composer is Danny Williams. Choreographer is Anne M. Lutz. Sets by Kevin P. Mullin. Lights by Juli Stewart and Paul Erricson. Costumes by Missy Phillips and Kevin P. Mullin. Stage manager is Bryan Barney. With Anne M. Lutz, Julie Jacobs, Morgan Brown, Tess Germain, Chris White, Bob Duch, Marty Murphy, Jo Coffey, Joyce Almond and John Wompey. At 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays, through Aug. 10. A Lionshare Productions presentation at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, 547 Fourth Ave., downtown. Tickets are $12.50-$17.50. 234-9583.