O.C. THEATER REVIEW : ‘Things You Don’t Know’: Like a Dull Night in Front of the TV

“The Things You Don’t Know,” which had its premiere Friday at South Coast Repertory, is one of those so-what plays. This lumpish new tragicomedy by screenwriter David Hollander is what I categorize as boilerplate regional.

Shallow at best, it made me feel as though I’d spent a dull evening watching television. The first act is sitcom. The second is maudlin. Little of either act rings true. Why it belongs on SCR’s Second Stage, which is touted as a place for adventurous plays, beats me.

“The Things You Don’t Know” centers on Louis, a college student who is flunking out, and a down-home cleaning lady, Annie, who once worked for his middle-class family in the Pittsburgh suburbs. It unfolds as a memory piece, dividing our attention between Louis’ childhood and his all-night drive to get back to Pittsburgh for the cleaning lady’s funeral.

Louis (Tom Chick) has been conning his way through life with lame excuses. Almost everybody sees through his sob stories. But he gets away with them either by wearing people down or manipulating their weaknesses. As written, he’s basically a jerk. And he hasn’t changed from childhood.

The young Louis (Jonathan Hunt Ficcadenti) is a latchkey kid who resents his parents. They’re rarely home. When they are, they never have time for him. He habitually steals money from their wallets. He also massages the truth--telling what Annie (Fran Bennett) calls his “daring fictions”--to draw attention.

Mom (Julie Fulton) and Dad (Hal Landon Jr.) are dysfunctional corporate types, so they doubtless deserve getting their pockets picked. The playwright sets them up as straw men to satirize. They talk as though they’re always at the office and regard themselves as, in Mom’s words, “a parental unit.”

They’re such easy targets, though, the satire is toothless. Mom and Dad are written as stick figures, objects of ridicule and nothing else.

Lonely young Louis feels awfully alienated. He has no friends. The kids don’t like him at school. He’s scared of a bully. His report card says he’s failing in math and science. He’s even lousy in metal shop (which elicits just about the only witty line of the evening).

Annie has her own problems. She tells us at the top of the first act that she was hit by a bus some time ago and that as she lay under it with her hip crushed, she could see the Marlboro Man on a billboard above her. This is meant to be symbolic of something.

In any case, she says she has sued the transit authority--and now she’s waiting for her day in court. She’s expecting to get a lot of money.

Young Louis looks to Annie for the warmth his parents never give him. She’s really not interested. To her, he’s just a snot-nosed kid at first. Louis blurts out, “What’s it like to be black?” It’s his way of starting a relationship. “What’s it like to be white?” she retorts.

We don’t find out either way--despite an exceptionally self-possessed performance from Ficcadenti, who is a child actor with wonderful timing, and a detailed characterization by Bennett, who fills out the role as persuasively as possible. Neither role offers these actors much to work with.

The same holds for Chick, clearly a solid, personable actor who is stuck with the thankless task of portraying an unredeemed nebbish. Michael McFall, playing multiple roles, does some fine sketching too. Fulton and Landon, who have the least to work with, can’t do much more than deliver Mom’s and Dad’s platitudes.

The play has a tin ear for both the ordinary and the poetic. The scenic design, with its emblematic frieze, does what it can to illustrate the lives of its characters. The blue-green paint job, purposely cheap, and the furnishings, purposely garish, serve for several settings. The costuming is perfect.

“The Things You Don’t Know” finally offers this epiphanic piece of wisdom: “There’s a difference between a lie and a dream.” As Louis, looking back on his life, spells it out: “Annie dreamed, while I deceived. Annie created, while I destroyed.” Such are the things we know.

* “The Things You Don’t Know,,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Ends Oct. 22. $26-$36. (714) 957-4033. Running time: 2 hours.

Fran Bennett: Annie

Tom Chick: Louis

Michael McFall: Andrew/Eric/Reverend Worth/Policeman, Waiter, Bus Driver

Jonathan Hun:t Ficcadenti Louis (Age 12)

Hal Landon Jr.: Dan

Julie Fulton: Phyliss

A South Coast Repertory production of a play by David Hollander. Directed by Martin Benson. Scenic design: John Iacovelli. Costume design: Todd Roehrman. Lighting design: Paulie Jenkins. Sound design: Garth Hemphill. Dramaturg: John Glore. Production manager: Michael Mora. Stage manager: Randall K. Lum.