‘The Boise Club’ Battles Midlife Crisis

“The Boise Club” is Bernard Baldan’s contribution to the literature of embattled middle-aged white men who feel stranded by feminism and an ever-changing world that robs them of their once-unquestioned dominance. Note to Robert Bly, Tim Allen, Rob Becker, etc: You don’t have to step aside just yet.

It’s not that Baldan has nothing to contribute to the genre. He actually has a couple of funny bits, a sketch, which he has fashioned into a play. A three-hour play. Baldan also stars in “The Boise Club,” which is having its world premiere at the Laguna Playhouse.

Baldan plays Ed, an Idaho salesman and father of two who tells white lies to his customers at the TV store. He is a likable everyman with a flat, sardonic delivery, a sort of male Roseanne. He hangs out in his basement, the kind of place where old appliances, skis and aged La-Z-Boy recliners come to die. His best friend from childhood is Bill (Randy Kovitz), an unemployed inventor who has as much trouble committing to a woman as he does to a job.

In the basement they meet, one overloaded with responsibility, the other shriveling up from lack of connection. Says Ed: “I feel like I’m in a box that’s growing smaller every year. . . . My best sex is behind me and I’m old enough to be the father of most of the women on TV.” Bill feels as if he’s falling off a cliff in slow-motion. So we have the standard-issue midlife crisis. What are the characters, and the playwright, going to do about it?

The two of them form a club, meet in a clubhouse (the basement) and make rules for self-improvement, such as “Listen to your inner voice” and “No women.” The rule Ed most passionately adheres to: Do something new. Ed does lots of new things. He takes up dancing, painting and carving statuettes out of bowling pins (his Elvis isn’t bad).

If this sounds dreary and uneventful, it is. So one can’t help but pin hopes on a potentially intriguing third character, an older man named Warren (played elegantly by Darrell Sandeen). Warren is a radio call-in host whom the men sometimes listen to. He has a hard Midwestern common sense that is appealing. Baldan manages to drag him into the action but has no idea how to integrate him or use him effectively. Warren’s function is especially confusing when we’re suddenly asked to see him as a bad guy for no reason other than that it is convenient to the playwright.

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Director Doug Jacobs has a feel for what comedy there is, but he’s driving a huge truck with tiny cargo against a strong wind. He just can’t get it on course.

Baldan allows himself some tired, cheap shots from the embattled-white-man trunk. Bill, for instance, goes bonkers when he thinks Ed is giving out his phone number to--oh my God--a homosexual. There are a couple of good riffs; Ed delivers one about the changing ideal body types for women. But this does not a play make. At the end of the day, one would expect the characters to learn more than that work is soul-killing and that we should all listen to our inner voices. After an evening of “The Boise Club,” your inner voice might just want to tell Baldan’s inner voice to try something new.

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“The Boise Club,” Laguna Playhouse at the Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. (no 7 p.m. show on Feb. 1). $29-$35. (714) 497-ARTS. Running time: 3 hours.

Darrell Sandeen: Warren

Bernard Baldan: Ed

Randy Kovitz: Bill

A Laguna Playhouse production. By Bernard Baldan. Directed by Doug Jacobs. Sets Michael Buckley. Lights Paulie Jenkins. Costumes Dione Lebhar. Properties Tim Dey. Sound David Edwards. Stage manager Nancy Staiger.