THEATER REVIEW : ‘Miss Reardon’ Rates a Mixed Report Card : Give this strong, emotional play an ‘E’ for effort and lower marks for production.

Anybody who’s ever attended a PTA meeting or watched a board of education in action realizes that politics in the halls of academe can be pretty nerve-racking.

Playwright and former science teacher Paul Zindel knows better than most: He followed his Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds,” written in 1965 and set in an academic arena, with another dissection of teachers and administrators.

“And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little” is appearing for the next few weeks at the Ojai Center for the Arts. The group deserves an “E” for effort, but the play and production rate mixed marks.

There are three Reardon sisters. Catherine lives at the home in which they grew up, taking care of Anna, who has been emotionally unstable--”flipped,” as one character puts it--ever since she did (or didn’t) contract rabies while on vacation in Italy. Anna has also become a militant vegetarian.

The third sister, Ceil, has married and left the family home; she’s also left the teaching profession to become an administrator. There are a lot of intra-familial pressures; it’s no wonder that Miss (Catherine) Reardon drinks.

The entire play takes place during a single evening, where the Reardon women come together--and fall apart--while visited by a neighbor couple, Bob and Fleur Stein.

This may sound a bit reminiscent of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and it is, though Zindel is no Edward Albee. Throughout, Zindel tends to reach too much: Catherine keeps raw meat in a candy box to snack on when Anna isn’t looking. Another character has refused to use a particular bathroom for nine years. Such unnecessary breaks from anything approaching realistic situations weaken the whole play.

While there are a number of laughs in the play, “Miss Reardon” is strong emotional stuff by the standards of the Ojai Art Center, where lightweight comedy is the usual menu. Director Tish Winkworth has assembled a cast that works hard at the material, some more successfully than others: Especially notable are June Barrett-Browning as Anna, and Michael Proctor and Carolejo Adams as the horrific Steins.

“And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little” is Winkworth’s last play for the company. After 15 years in the Ojai theatrical community, including helping formation of the current incarnation of the Ojai Shakespeare Festival, she and her husband will soon move to Northern California. Her presence, enthusiasm and skill will be missed.

Details

* WHAT: “And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little.”

* WHEN: Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., through May 21.

* WHERE: Ojai Center for the Arts, 113 S. Montgomery St.

* HOW MUCH: $8 general admission; $6 for students, senior citizens and Arts Center members.

* FYI: For reservations or information, call 649-1107.