Acting Passion

A real heart beats at the center of “Boxcar and Eugenia,” at the Victory Theatre, and it would be good to report that it’s the play itself, by Art Shulman.

But far stronger than this overlong, too predictable and too sappy drama-comedy is Rochelle Savitt’s performance as Eugenia, a 77-year-old blind Jewish widow whose worst fault is her kindness to strangers. Because Eugenia is retired from theater acting and training, yet still bubbling with passion for the art, there’s an uncommon synergy between actor and character.

The onstage result is almost schizophrenic: At one end, a mundane two-act play badly in need of rewrite and trim; on the other, a richly nuanced Savitt eliciting a whole spectrum of emotions, ultimately delivering a level of bracing tragedy barely suggested in the script itself.

Shulman’s setup and narrative are pure sitcom, and there’s the nagging suspicion--until the tragedy develops--that this is yet another L.A. play masquerading as a TV pilot. Eugenia lives alone in her own home, visited by social worker Susan (Therese Lentz) but vulnerable to the kind of fraud and robbery that can daily haunt seniors living alone.

In stumbles portly, drunken John “Boxcar” Oldcastle (Randy Polk), who has just been kicked out of the local theater company’s Christmas play but is still wearing his Santa costume. We’re spared an excess of the inevitable Jewish-Santa jokes, but not the cliches about overweight-guys-as-Santa being losers, or strained plotting, which has Eugenia actually agreeing to let this big stranger stay with her.

True to this play’s sentimentalism is Boxcar’s habit of stealing roommates’ money, then feeling guilty about it, while also being impossibly lazy about job-hunting yet deeply passionate about his plants. Shulman’s brand of character insight is uttered by Boxcar, who sometimes prefers plants because they don’t judge him.

Shulman’s unnecessarily complicated back story and action for Boxcar is what makes his play so long and uninteresting, nearly pushing poor Eugenia offstage. Through sheer acting power, however, Savitt rights this show’s emotional ship just before it is nearly upended by an absurdly busy plot line.

Eugenia’s instructions to Boxcar about performing Falstaff (his theater group is staging “Henry IV Part One”) are variations on Method training, sense-memory and other techniques, but it comes down to wisdom about becoming one with the character--which Savitt does with wit and style. Polk is likable but unaffecting, while the rest of director Lori Street-Tubert’s cast is bland and wooden, as if they weren’t around during rehearsals to watch Savitt do a clinic on acting.

BE THERE

“Boxcar and Eugenia,” Victory Theatre, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Sept. 20. (818) 841-5421. $18-$20. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.