Strong Performances, Forced Humor in ‘Miss Reardon’

As reported recently in The Times, American independent movies are rediscovering families in a big way. And because functional clans aren’t dramatically interesting, the families in “The House of Yes” or “The Ice Storm” or “Soul Food” (or, most spectacularly of all, the upcoming “The Sweet Hereafter”) are screwed up.

If you see any of these films, and also catch the Theatre District’s revival of Paul Zindel’s 1971 play, “And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little,” you’ll be pardoned if you have a sense of deja vu. In many ways, the current film wave of familial dysfunction is nothing more than a recycling of Zindel’s brand of sadly, blackly comic savaging. And Zindel in “Miss Reardon” was only recycling family variations more brilliantly spun by Eugene O’Neill and Edward Albee.

The play’s title alone, identifying cynical lush Catherine Reardon (Alice Ensor) as “Miss,” makes it dated. (Today, a Ms. Reardon would likely snort, or smoke, a little.) The intruding, nasty couple from downstairs--Bob and Fleur Stein (Rick Boal and Deborah S. Conroy), he the total Corporate Man, she the mousy, talentless wife and amateur counselor--are right out of Neil Simon’s ‘60s comedies. Only Ceil (Christi Sweeney) is liberated and upscale among the Reardon sisters, and she’s a stuck-up jerk.

So the play is kind of a pre-feminist museum piece, and it gets off on the wrong foot with flat, awkwardly written humor that director John Bowerman’s cast hasn’t a clue how to make funny. The play rights itself, though, as we settle in with the sisters Reardon. Catherine and Anna (Jill Cary Martin) are teachers, while Ceil is a school board executive. Anna is literally losing her mind, after being accused of molesting a schoolboy; Catherine nurses her, while Ceil, worried how it looks to be related to a crazy woman, is attempting political damage control.

In fact, Ceil is the outsider in the family. Zindel develops this a little but then nearly undoes his own play with the long middle section involving the terrible Stein neighbors. There’s a way in which Zindel is more afraid of emotional hurt than the sisters are, so he stops his dramatic momentum with distracting jokey wisecracks, asides, tired running gags (Anna’s vegetarianism gets an exhausting workout) and intruders like the Steins.

Bowerman has cast extremely well, though. Ensor and Sweeney do marvelous, shaded performances that deliver on each venomous line. Martin, looking appropriately borderline sick for the role, mostly underplays Anna, though an actorishness comes through at times. In ridiculous roles, Conroy and Boal almost steal the show.

The production is typically handsome for this theater: Cabeza de Borghese Ltd. did the set, and it’s as lavish as the credit makes it sound. Props, care of Kathy Fulton, are especially vivid in the food department.

BE THERE

“And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little,” Theatre District, the Lab mall, 2930 Bristol St., Costa Mesa. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 18. $15-$20. (714) 435-4043. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.