THEATER / JAN HERMAN : Effort Blooms Brightest in Barren ‘Cactus Flower’

Some amateur theatrical offerings can’t simply be attended and reviewed. They must be accommodated and humored.

Such is the case with the Westminster Community Theatre’s half-baked revival of “Cactus Flower,” a production so lacking in resources, but also so earnest and hard-working, that it would be churlish to apply the usual standards of measurement.

The basic questions may not be asked--is the mood right, the staging apt, the acting any good?--because the answers would be resoundingly, unconditionally and predictably “no,” leaving nothing else to say.

The show has one major element in its favor: “Cactus Flower” doesn’t get produced much in Orange County, or anywhere else. The Laguna Playhouse did it way back in 1969, but that’s the only local production I’m aware of. So, bravo for an uncommon choice.

“Cactus Flower,” written by Abe Burrows, is a slight Manhattan comedy based on a slender French boulevard farce (“Fleur de Cactus” by Pierre Barrillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy). It premiered on Broadway in 1965 with Lauren Bacall, Barry Nelson and Brenda Vaccaro--which helps explain why it became one of that year’s hits.

Not that Burrows was a stranger to hits. Among the snappiest Broadway gag writers of the ‘50s and ‘60s, he co-wrote “Guys and Dolls” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” He also wrote and/or directed many other successful, if less memorable, shows such as “Can-Can” and “Forty Carats.”

“Cactus Flower” tells the reed-thin story of a middle-aged Park Avenue bachelor dentist and a naive young Greenwich Village bohemian who has fallen in love with him.

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As the play opens, we learn she has attempted suicide because he stood her up for a date. Impressed, he proposes marriage. But she won’t accept until she has assurances from his wife and kids that they won’t mind his getting a divorce.

The trouble is, he doesn’t have a wife and kids. He only pretended he had a wife to avoid wedding bells in the first place. But now, because he suddenly believes he’s in love and because his girlfriend has such a devout belief in his honesty, he feels compelled to produce a wife.

Enter the dentist’s longtime, long-suffering nurse, whom he asks to impersonate the wife just long enough to give her blessing to a divorce. The scheme turns out to be short-lived, of course, because the nurse has other plans.

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If these convolutions aren’t preposterous enough, further complications set in as the dentist’s patients and the girlfriend’s neighbor--a hopeful writer chained to his desk by the long leash of a well-heeled family allowance--become caught up in the plot.

“Cactus Flower” unfolds in 15 scenes that jump back and forth from the dentist’s office, the girlfriend’s apartment, a music shop and a nightclub. This requires 14 set changes. That may explain, even more than the dated material, why so few troupes revive the show.

A turntable could accomplish the task without much trouble. Lacking that, the Westminster production has a crew waiting in the wings. After each scene they rush onto the darkened stage and attack the set, dismantling and reassembling it with speed and thoroughness.

But the changes are never really fast enough; they can’t be. The sets are so rudimentary, in any case, why bother to change them at all?

By the fifth or sixth rearrangement of the furniture, the routine becomes so repetitive that all sense of the play’s forward motion--little enough to begin with--slows from a limp to a crawl.

Meanwhile, without anything to savor in the comic performances, this poor “Cactus Flower” just wilts and dies.

* “Cactus Flower,” Westminster Community Theatre, 7272 Maple St., Westminster. Fridays and Saturdays, 8:30 p.m.; matinee Dec. 5, 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 11. $7 to $9. (714) 527-8463. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

Claudia Ehrhardt: Toni Simmons

Lindsay Irvine: Igor Sullivan

Laurie LeBlanc: Stephanie Dickinson

Mary Benton: Mrs. Dixon Durant

Marc LeBlanc: Dr. Julian Winston

Bob Goff: Harvey Greenfield

Edward J. Steneck: Senor Arturo Sanchez

Karla Abrams: Boticelli’s Springtime

A Westminster Community Theatre production. Written by Abe Burrows. Directed by Sandi Newcomb. Produced by Steve Carlock. Scenic design by Bronson. Costumes by June Steneck. Lighting design by Tim Jones. Lights and sound by Peter Smith.