VALLEY WEEKEND : REVIEW : The Bloom Has Gone From ‘The Subject Was Roses’ : Time has not been kind to Frank Gilroy’s Pulitzer-winning play, despite Whitefire Theatre’s efforts.

In the long canon of the American literary obsession with the family unit, Frank Gilroy’s “The Subject Was Roses” has been thought to be some kind of watermark, if only because of the awards it accrued, from the Pulitzer to the Oscar. It may not be revived very often, but any work with that kind of acclamation has to deserve to come back now and then. Right?

At the Whitefire Theatre, it’s clear why they don’t do “Roses” very often. Eclipsed by both Arthur Miller’s infinitely more shattering, similarly naturalistic family dramas before it, and Sam Shepard’s disturbing, poeticized ones after it (“Buried Child,” for example), Gilroy’s depiction of a bitter and bothered family triangle of father, mother and son feels hollow with the passage of time--that cruel judge of many other Pulitzer and Oscar winners.

Appropriately, “Roses” is about time, and how it works to build or dissolve a family. Nettie Cleary (Madgel Dean) remembers her son, Timmy (Derrel Maury), as a fragile boy who needed protecting. Timmy’s dad, John (Arthur Bernard), remembers his son as a kid who needed a push. Timmy, just back from four years in “the war” (although it’s 1946, some time after VJ Day), remembers mom and dad’s terrible fights, and how they somehow made four years in the Army not seem so bad.

But like a wrapped gift for his audience, Gilroy presents us with all the basic themes and exposition in the first few amazingly ham-fisted minutes--especially the idea that Timmy went to war a boy and has come back a man. The drama is obviously going to be about whether the folks can adjust to grown-up Timmy, who’s staying with them indefinitely in their Bronx flat.

Of course, that’s only half the story--the other half is whether Nettie and John can stop hating each other, which they have been doing for years. Alas, Gilroy never provides the catalytic event that would send these people to the boiling point. Somehow, a prodigal son’s return isn’t enough. And absolutely, business involving a vase of roses isn’t enough either.

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In retrospect, it’s amazing how underdeveloped the play is, and how much work the actors must do to fill things in. Timmy’s character is a virtual blank slate, which Maury sketches in with the behavior of a well-mannered boy who’s tired of being good and is giving in to the bottle. It takes Nettie to explain to us the origins of her miscalculated marriage, but despite a distinctly personal and touching performance by Bernard, we never understand what has made John so cantankerous and nasty all these years.

Nettie’s review of her marriage gives Dean more to go on than her colleagues, allowing her to create a quietly sad portrait of a woman with a life of lost opportunities. Director Myrl A. Schreibman seems to have let his actors (all members of the same family) despite their different stage names) more or less alone, except in certain key action moments which are notably clumsy.

Sydney Z. Litwack’s impeccably detailed apartment set is a throwback to the days when theater sets were the kind you could live in. Along with Felix Cortes Scholer’s lighting (especially sensitive in night scenes), the look of the show announces “naturalistic family drama.” Unfortunately, the drama itself announces its themes and ideas long before they get played out. Time has not been kind to “Roses.”

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DETAILS

* WHAT: “The Subject Was Roses.”

* WHERE: Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

* WHEN: Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m ; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Nov. 19.

* HOW MUCH: $12-$15.

* FYI: (213) 660-8587.