Sparse ‘Sensible’ Romance Seems Out of Place

What makes a man and woman fall in love? Or break up? Or reconcile?

A short teleplay can trip easily over unanswered questions of motivation, which is the fate of “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Sensible Thing’ ” Sunday on PBS.

In adapting one of the shortest stories by the greatest writer of the Jazz Age, director Elise Robertson worshipfully lifts whole scenes of dialogue in this romantic drama, but can’t quite capture the story’s omniscient voice. As a result the situations--which, after all, are rooted in the storied courtship of the passionate young author and the rich, schizophrenic Southern belle Zelda Sayre--have a dropped-out-of-the-sky feel to them. You’ll be left trying to remember, among other things, what the title refers to.

The spare plot concerns George O’Kelly (Jason Cole), a young man working in New York who is torn about having left his lovely and flirtatious girlfriend, Jonquil Cary (Kristina Robbins), back home in Tennessee. He anxiously returns hoping to set a wedding date, but she feels they missed their chance at love when he went away. Marriage now, she declares in Fitzgerald’s story, just wouldn’t be the sensible thing. So he departs again in great turmoil, but some time later, after his professional success seems assured, he woos her back only to realize love the second time around is not as sweet.

Aside from an uneven supporting cast and production design sketching the upper-crust 1920s setting that is distractingly anachronistic--understandable for this production’s reported $35,000 budget--the story suffers a few ragged transitions and a glaring lapse in depicting the passage of time between George’s tumultuous departure and his eventual return.

On the other hand, a dream sequence works quite well in showing Jonquil at tennis with George’s rival--set to the sounds of making love.

And while lust is at times quaintly expressed as clutching, Robertson succeeds in drawing convincing performances from the two lead players, particularly Robbins, who in a few beguiling close-ups silently projects Jonquil’s reignited feelings for her suitor.

The drama is planned as the first in a 13-episode series under the banner “American Storytellers.”

* “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Sensible Thing’ ” premieres Sunday at 10:30 p.m. on KCET. The network has rated this program TV-PG-S, it contains material that parents may find unsuitable for younger children including some sexual situations.