STAGE REVIEW : ‘Nile’ in Search of Its Paddle

It must have sounded like a good idea for a farce: a spoof of Hollywood in which a bellhop and a man-hungry divorcee eventually deliver the script that a successful TV writer and his well-established British partner can’t.

Throw in booze, a disembodied hand, a producer named Arnold Milken--that’s right, Milken --and what you get is something called “Up the Nile” that misfires grandly at Burbank’s Victory Theatre.

The idea has possibilities (most ideas do), but first-time playwright Anne Taylor doesn’t know how to turn them into a funny play and director Maria Gobetti has only encouraged its excesses. The production is overstated, the dialogue vapid, the humor rank or chauvinistic, the situations unbelievable and the cliches abundant.

British Edward (Peter Sands) and American David (Peter Sprague) are the writers holed up in a hotel room with a large supply of alcohol and even larger writer’s block. In hopes of finding inspiration in real life, Edward locks the bellhop in the bedroom. A maid who comes to clean meets a similar fate. And finally the divorcee down the hall (Suanne Spoke) is allowed to join the party.

No, this is not a sex farce. A touch of romance between David and the maid, Amanda (Mary Catherine Williford), is as hot as it gets. The bellboy Mark (Tuc Watkins) and the divorcee end up writing David and Edward’s screenplay in less than 12 hours (on a computer no less), just in time for Milken’s arrival.

Guy Christopher, who plays Milken, is the genuine article. His character’s level of crassness fits right into a play in which everyone drinks too much (the cheapest laugh-getter) and lines about urinating on tennis rackets are the measure of funny.

Spoke, Sprague and especially Williford survive the wreckage reasonably well, but Sands overacts with impunity and Watkins is a little too cute for comfort.

Gobetti has done better work. She’s just boarded the wrong felucca , leaving the company stranded up this “Nile” without a paddle.

* “Up the Nile,” Victory Theatre, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends May 24. $15-$17; (818) 841-5421. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.