THEATER REVIEW : ‘Beyond Therapy’ Still Gets Laughs, but Its Topic Shrinks a Bit With Age

Popular entertainment abounds with absurdist portraits of psychiatrists, who rank right up there with lawyers and politicians as objects of theatrical ridicule. But few spoofs lampoon psychiatry with more impudence than Christopher Durang’s comedic sendup “Beyond Therapy,” currently at the Basement Theatre in Pasadena.

The Basement stage, the subterranean venue of the First Congregational Church, has been transformed from its formerly cavernous and murky space into a much more hospitable, cozy 49-seat theater.

“Beyond Therapy”--which centers on two psychiatric patients and their egregiously psycho shrinks--is farcical and silly on the surface. But it’s really poised to be a wicked satire of sex and psychiatry that requires a light touch to pull off. In this instance, director Brett Grindle, who last year successfully staged another and considerably more difficult absurdist work at the Basement (Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros”), comes up with a moderately funny but uneven production.

Durang, who writes with a collegiate-like precociousness, is the playwright who spoofed movie genres and screen stars in “A History of the American Film” and showed little mercy for parochial education in “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You.”

But his signature black humor in “Beyond Therapy,” which segued from off-Broadway to Broadway 12 years ago (then closed after two weeks), has lost some of its freshness. The writing spins off the self-indulgences of the 1970s’ “Me Decade,” but the territory seems a little frayed and old hat today.

The plot is almost too symmetrical for its own good. Both Prudence (Kathryn Bundy) and Bruce (Thomas Richard Sheppard) are therapy addicts. Prudence’s therapist (Harvey Cohen, ably stepping in as an alternate) encourages her to be assertive. Bruce’s therapist (Patricia Marina) doesn’t comprehend that her client is gay and persuades him to meet a woman by placing a personal ad.

The only problem is that Bruce’s lover (David G. Robinson) is coiled to retaliate. But Bruce places the ad anyway and you can almost guess the rest. When the emotionally wrought patients Prudence and Bruce (who are not nearly as sick as their doctors) do finally meet in a snooty New York restaurant, they run smack into their psychiatrists in a well-staged Marx Brothers bit of farce that is the physical highlight of the show. Check out the aloof waiter (stone-faced Pojin Sven).

Some of Durang’s lines still resonate--one character describes Chekhov as “psychic suffering in the right frame of mind”--but other lines sink: “Men who prefer oral sex,” says Marina’s crazed female shrink, “may wish to return to the womb.”

The playing veers from the bland to the hyper, but Bundy as the lightly giddy, comparably sane Prudence character is the show’s singularly accomplished performance. Bundy, in fact, is such a charmer she reminds you of a latter-day Irene Dunne or Claudette Colbert.

* “Beyond Therapy,” Basement Theatre, 464 E. Walnut St., Pasadena, Thursday through Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday matinee, April 10, 1 p.m. Ends April 30. $12 to $10. (818) 683-1651. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.