STAGE REVIEW : A Compassionate Study of Family Ties

Biddy is dead. No doubt about that, nor about the emotional fallout she left behind. While she lies in the mortuary’s “slumber room,” the family has started to gather. Her brother Don and sister Kathleen are puffing away on cigarettes, while their decidedly younger sister Erin (a self-proclaimed “oops”) sits patiently watching Biddy’s still features.

What’s wrong with this picture? Ask Biddy’s volatile son Mike, a shutterbug who’s insisting on snapshots of the family next to the corpse, and advising that Biddy looks more like herself from the other side of the coffin. Mike says there’s plenty wrong, but--according to Greg Suddeth’s compassionate “Being of Sound Mind,” at the Whitefire Theatre--it’s really nothing abnormal.

In today’s self-conscious jargon, the Sheas would be called dysfunctional. They are a mess, which is to say, they’re an average family of individuals struggling for identity and maybe a little affection. A bit co-dependent, sure, but isn’t that what holds families together?

Kathleen (Julianna McCarthy), who saw him first, still loves Biddy’s ex-husband Larry (Robert Sampson), who has lost his second wife within weeks of Biddy’s death. He still loves Kathleen. Mike (Matt Landers) is concerned about his own various families (he’s a chip off the old block).

Solidly married Erin (Katie Mitchell) is itching for something extramarital, possibly with the part-Irish-, part-African-American priest (Lionel Mark Smith)--who insists on being called Bob, and maintains his sense of humor in the face of the Shea storms. Don (Ian Patrick Williams) tries vainly to keep the peace.

The fly in the ointment is Biddy’s younger son Dillon (John Mueller), who may or may not be arriving from California for the funeral. When he does, the family closets bang open. Dillon is a maverick. He says he has escaped from the mental hospital where he had worked--until his wife had him committed because of irrational behavior. But is he really irrational? Biddy thought not, and she certainly was in sound mind when she made out her will.

Suddeth knows the Sheas intimately and he knows all about their Irish-American frailties, what’s sad about them and what is very often funny in their familial jockeying. They’re fighting the same battles most of us fight, and that’s what’s reassuring and enlightening about his play. It reflects a true image of real people.

Although Anthony Barnao’s direction doesn’t always keep a fire burning beneath moments that should have more tension, he knows the colors and shapes in the text and makes them shine. The performances are expert and insightful; the actors are obviously as fond of the Sheas as the viewer becomes.

* “Being of Sound Mind,” Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Nov. 24. $15; (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.