THEATER REVIEWS : Family Power Games in ‘American Plan’

The genius of Richard Greenberg’s “The American Plan,” in its West Coast premiere at the Tiffany, is that it looks like just a nostalgic period piece about the Catskills, circa 1959, but it actually grabs that world by its blintzes and kishkes.

Heavily accented Eva Adler (the staunch Elsa Raven) and her smothered and somewhat nutsy daughter Lili (the monochromatic Staci Greason) live on an estate just across the lake from a noisy resort. When a cad named Nick Lockridge (the too-tepid Paul Eves) happens along, Eva manipulates a romance between Lili and the interloper. Things are naturally thrown for a loop, though, when one of Nick’s old flames, Gil Harbison (aptly smarmy Michael Bonnabel), shows up.

Directed with an ear for emotional truth but without a lot of staging finesse by Andrew Chown, the play is as much about family power games as it is about “dreams deferred.” In the last scene, long after Eva has bought the farm and a subdued Lili and Nick meet again in Manhattan, they finally come to the pained conclusion that “Happiness exists. But it is for other people.” Go figure.

*”The American Plan,” Tiffany Theatre, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, Mondays-Tuesdays, 8 p.m.; Ends June 29. $12. (310) 289-2999.