Unlikely Collision of Restless Hearts Is at the Heart of ‘Misconduct Allowed’

In an age when conversations about the Big R often take precedence over world traumas during dinners in trendy metropolitan cafes, it would seem that another play about relationships falls into a glutted market.

Unless, of course, that play has a twist that takes it beyond the norm.

Minda Burr, playwright and director of “Misconduct Allowed,” which opened Thursday at the Tiffany Theatre in West Hollywood, might have found that twist. The protagonists in her “sexy serious comedy” are definitely not your ordinary thirtysomething types.

“Natalie is a psychologist with a very successful practice,” says Burr. “She’s very controlled. Her life is very much together. She’s made nothing but intelligent choices her whole life.” Burr laughs at the suggestion that the character Natalie is far from typical, never having made a big mistake, never having been involved in an unhealthy relationship.

“And she’s counseling people,” Burr continues, “about something she knows absolutely nothing about firsthand.”

The wrench the playwright has thrown in Natalie’s path is Benny, a stand-up comic, Burr says, “who has a penchant for sleazy lounge chicks. He’s a cocky Italian-American from New York, a womanizer, but charming, very charming. Benny has a particular problem. He’s always done very, very well with the ladies, but now something’s not quite working right.”

The collision between these two immovable objects is at the core of “Misconduct Allowed.” Benny’s reason for seeking therapy and Natalie’s unsuspected need for something more real than her relationship with an attorney give them a special patina.

Burr has found a couple of recognizable faces to bring her odd couple to life. Natalie is played by Margaret Reed, seen recently in the Los Angeles production of “Other People’s Money” at the Pasadena Playhouse and the Westwood Playhouse. After five seasons on the soap “As the World Turns,” Reed returned to the stage in the world premiere of Neil Simon’s “Jake’s Women” at San Diego’s Old Globe. Her films include “Quicksand” and “Sally and Phil.”

Benny is Peter Reckell, who started his TV career on the same soap but found glory as Bo Brady on “Days of Our Lives,” for which he was voted the No. 1 male actor in daytime television for three years running by Soap Opera Digest. He was a regular on “Knots Landing” for two years and has appeared in such TV movies as “Locked Up.”

These characters, the actors say, are a stretch from their television personas. Both have been trying to get back onstage in recent months. Reckell was planning to produce a play himself at the Tiffany Theatre in January. Then a mutual friend of Burr’s sent him the script for “Misconduct.”

“It was exactly what I wanted to do,” says Reckell, “and I don’t have to produce it!”

Reed also was considering producing a play with her fiance, Kenny Myles (who plays the lawyer in “Misconduct”). “Then this came along,” Reed says, “and it’s just such a wonderful character for me.”

All three have a fascination with the changes, what Burr calls the “transformations,” that begin in one’s late 20s and continue into the mid-to-late 30s.

“From what I’ve observed in my own life and the people around me, that’s when most of the changes happen,” Burr says. “You start doing a lot of soul-searching. Things that used to work, things that got you excited, that you used to have a lot of fun with, just don’t work anymore. You start getting in trouble with the choices you’ve made.”

Reckell responds, “You’re still making your parents’ choices rather than your own.”

“Finally,” Burr continues, “you go, ‘It’s time to do something else here.’ ”

Reckell laughs. “Or, you don’t.”

“You realize,” Reed says, jumping into the conversation, “that you don’t have all the time you thought you had. Mortality starts to be in front of you more.”

Burr is a certified hypnotherapist in addition to her writing, directing and acting. She recently appeared in the critically acclaimed “Rage! Or I’ll Be Home for Christmas” at Burbank’s Alliance Repertory Theatre.

“I do a lot of work with counseling,” she says. “Human behavior fascinates me. I thought this was an interesting arena.”

Another interesting arena is the apparent rush of television and film actors into small theaters in Los Angeles. Reckell and Reed have solid explanations for the phenomenon.

“People don’t understand,” says Reckell, “actors have to work out the same as anybody else. You get good by doing what you do. And this piece has a huge range.”

“We go full circle and beyond,” Reed says with a chuckle. “In television you’re asked to do just what you’ve done before. This play is really stretching us. I’ve done a lot of TV, and that’s been good. But it only lasts a week, a week and a half, and then you’re done. And then you see it and you think, ‘If I could just have done that a little differently!’ ”

“In movies and television,” says Reckell, “you go in and do what you do, then leave.” He welcomes the slower pace and broader scope of stage work, “things you don’t have the luxury to do in the other arena. You get to play and work with things. That’s why most actors who do theater, do it. You can really get in and get your fingernails dirty.”

Those are choices actors have to make, but they’re not dissimilar from the choices Burr wrote about in her play. Reed puts it succinctly.

“Choices affect you in a different way. And not choosing also affects you. The things we think we should want in our life, and all that. The social things say that I should want that, but maybe that’s just not right for me.”