‘Family Values’ Is More Like ‘Leave It to Cleaver’

Comedy is hard. Black comedy is harder. Joe Orton and Nicky Silver can do it. They have you laughing at the unthinkable without ever losing a sense of horror.

Then there’s Marvin Pletzke’s “Family Values,” which is having its world premiere at the North Coast Repertory Theatre through Sept. 7. It makes you wish you’d missed the Lomas Santa Fe exit on Interstate 5.

Mae, the mom (Pat DiMeo), drinks too many mint juleps. Gus, the dad (Robert Larsen), smokes two to three packs a day. Other than these foibles and a tendency to bicker, they are cast with a ‘50s “Leave It to Beaver” sensibility about their little nuclear family.

Except their little Beaver, grown son Linter (John Christopher Guth), has more than the usual sitcom-style resolvable-in-30-minutes crises. He lives at home and has an annoying habit of bringing dead bodies and severed heads up to his room with an embarrassed shrug, almost as if he was a kid trying to smuggle in a dirty mutt from the streets.

Yes, Pletzke and the North Coast are asking us to have fun with a tale of murder and dismemberment that plays out like “Leave It to Beaver” with a Manson twist.

Maybe artistic director Olive Blakistone, who directed the play, was captivated by the amusing eccentricities of the individual roles, which do earn the capable Larsen, Guth and DiMeo some laughs when the banter is cooking. But if ever a play was less than the sum of its parts, this is it.

Silver does deal with a serial killer in “Fat Men in Skirts,” but by the time he gets to the killing, he has created a character with a pathology that is horrible but fascinating and almost comprehensible given his tortured relationship with both parents. And we are no longer asked to laugh at that point.

But where Silver, Orton and Stephen Sondheim in “Sweeney Todd,” can make us laugh at the unthinkable while making a point about the dark side of human nature, Pletzke summons no insights, no emotional payoff. Instead of black comedy, it’s just black.

*

Doug Reger heightens whatever suspense there is here, snarling his way through the part of Linter’s homicidal buddy, Tony. And Larry Corodemas brings some welcome sense of dimension into the proceedings as the corrupt, embittered investigator, Officer Tilson. But these parts, like the others, are too thin overall to spark the story into anything resembling life.

Marty Burnett’s intriguing, colorful set seems to be designed around a traffic theme. That’s the most fitting thing about this production, because the experience is so much like witnessing a train wreck.

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* “Family Values,” North Coast Repertory Theatre, Lomas Santa Fe Plaza, Solana Beach. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sept 7. $16-$18. (619) 481-1055. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.

Robert Larsen: Gus (The Father)

John Christopher Guth: Linter (The Son)

Pat DiMeo: Mae (The Mother)

Doug Reger: Tony (The Friend)

Larry Corodemas: Officer Tilson (The Law)

Jennifer Tyrer: More Law

A North Coast Repertory Theatre production of a comedy by Marvin Pletzke. Directed by Olive Blakistone. Sets: Marty Burnett. Lights: Richard Fellner. Sound: Michael Shapiro. Costumes: Bryan Schmidtberger. Stage manager: Jennifer Tyrer.