THEATER REVIEW / ‘MORNING’S AT SEVEN’ : 54-Year-Old Play a Nice Fit for Plaza Players

Unfortunately for playwright Paul Osborne, his comedy “Morning’s at Seven” opened during the 1939 Broadway season; its gentleness was outglared by the dazzling successes of “The Time of Your Life,” “Life with Father” and “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” all of which opened about the same time.

Fifty-four years later, Osborne’s play holds up much better than its competitors. In fact, its language, situations and ideas have hardly dated at all.

Thirteen years after a well-received Broadway production, the play is making the rounds in Southern California. There are current productions by the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and Ventura’s Plaza Players. And how nice it is to recommend that you save gas money and attend the local production.

The four former Gibbs sisters, all well over 50 years old, live practically together in a small town. Ida and her husband, Carl Bolton, occupy a house with their 40-year-old son, Homer. And sharing a back yard with the Boltons are Cora and Thor Swanson and the one spinster sister, Aaronetta Gibbs. Nearby live Esther and David Crampton.

It might be assumed that they’d have all their differences settled. The sisters’ relationship is still dynamic, though; in fact, that reciprocity seems to be all they live for, their husbands standing idly by. David, a college professor, is so alienated by his wife’s siblings that he refuses to speak to them.

The play unfolds a bit slowly at first, then the main story line is introduced with Homer’s lengthy courtship of Myrtle Brown. When Homer is at last induced--by the first of two dramatic second-act revelations--to propose marriage, the aftermath prompts familial relationships to shift. The consequences are more amusing to the audience than to the participants; on stage, strong tension is strung through the laughs.

Director Patricia Lynn-Strickland, making her Plaza Players debut, has cast the production with a consistently strong mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces. While some roles are a little flashier than others, the performances are uniformly good. Nita Fouhse, Marlene Reinhart, Dorothy Scott and Rojan Disparte portray Cora, Ida, Esther and the never-married Aaronetta, respectively, with Braden McKinley as stolid Thor. Bob Daley gives Carl a halting Jimmy Stewart drawl, and deep-voiced Richard Welch Monnie is very funny as the blustering intellectual David. Mark Sapp and Leslie Nichols play the nicely matched doofus “kids,” Homer and Myrtle.

Osborne doesn’t set his play anyplace in particular; speech patterns, language and some of the actors’ accents hint at the Midwest. Lee Monnier has designed a handsome stage set, and Lynn-Strickland directs with a sure hand. It’s probably seniors to whom “Morning’s at Seven” will be most immediately attractive, but the relationships are ultimately as universal as the humor.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“Morning’s at Seven” continues Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 through July 3 at the Plaza Players Theater, 34 N. Palm St. (in the Livery Building courtyard) in Ventura. Tickets are $7 Wednesdays, $9 Fridays, and $10 Saturdays. For reservations or further information, call 643-9460.

CASTING CALL / AUDITIONS

Float like a butterfly: Having already cast Hugh McManigal in the leading role of Rene Gallimjard in the Plaza Players’ upcoming production of David Henry Hwang’s “M. Butterfly,” director Michael Maynez is still looking for a few good men. And women. Five adult male and three adult female roles are open, including three male or female dancers. A slightly built Asian male is mandatory for one role. Auditions are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Plaza Players Theater, 34 N. Palm St. (in the Livery Building courtyard), Ventura. For further information, call Maynez at 643-9460 or 653-2378.