Stage Light

As young, naive and pent-up David Kolowitz, the hero of Joseph Stein’s Depression-era comedy “Enter Laughing,” James Barry turns in a performance that is a study in huffing, puffing panic, as if David knows the world’s about to end while those around him are clueless. It’s a funny piece of shtick for five minutes, but at Group Repertory Theatre, director Van Boudreaux allows Barry to continue his one-note notion of unadulterated uptightness for two hours.

The result is the worst spectacle in comedy: an actor sweating to get laughs. For anyone who knows Carl Reiner and his work (“Enter Laughing” being based on his autobiography, with David as young Reiner struggling to break into acting), the trademark Reiner style is deadpan aplomb. Reiner originally was slated to play the male lead in his pilot for a sitcom, and though the role (and the name of the show) went to Dick Van Dyke, Reiner’s brand of cool stamped the series and the best sitcoms of the 1960s.

Of course, Reiner the man and the performer has had his high-tension moments, but Barry’s approach goes beyond tension to comedic paralysis. He unfortunately appears to be an actor caught in a gear he can’t possibly get out of, exacerbated by the writing that is constantly placing David in one sticky situation after another. It becomes nearly impossible for us to distinguish the stuck actor from the character who’s trying to learn to act and flunking at it miserably.

The opening act has plenty of charms, starting with Elliott Goldwag’s dry, kvetching machine-shop owner Mr. Foreman, whom David works for. Delivering each line with an innate sense of comic timing, Richard Benson’s Marvin is a nerdy delight. And as the father-daughter acting team running a theater school, Christopher Winfield’s Marlowe and Bonnie Leigh Burgess’ Angela ooze the kind of pretension designed to turn the Davids of the world into puddles.

Drawn in more cliched terms, David’s terminally protective parents are at least given some kitchen-sink humanity by Sheila Oaks and J.P. Bumstead. But they and the rest of the characters suffer in Act II, which jettisons old-time New York charm for jittery sitcom. The more jittery it gets, the more it eggs Barry into neurotic overdrive, climaxing with David’s stunningly unfunny stage debut. Harming matters especially is the zero degree of chemistry between Barry and Yvette Guigneaux as David’s loyal, unglamorous girlfriend, Wanda.

Things at least move along on an especially efficient if unevocative set by Desma Murphy, while costumer Randon Pool has fun with a pair of tuxedos, prayer shawls and sexy silk ensembles.

“Enter Laughing,” Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Runs indefinitely. $16. (818) 769-7529. Running time: 2 hours.