Sweet, Ironic ‘Talley’s Folley’

In an opening narration, Lanford Wilson describes his short “Talley’s Folly” as a waltz. But this isn’t a practiced, flowing waltz gracefully trod by sophisticated lovers. Instead, Wilson gives us an awkward, faltering dance between two lonely, middle-aged people.

Under Shashin Desai’s fluid direction, Jennifer Parsons and Robert Silver sparkle in this poignantly realized International City Theatre production at the Center Theater of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center.

As part narrator and part chorus, Matt (Silver), a Jewish German immigrant accountant, welcomes us to this “no-holds-barred romantic story.” As his family’s only survivor, Matt has buried himself in numbers and tax laws, staying ignorant of people.

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A year ago, he met Sally (Parsons), the spinster daughter of a wealthy family, courting her for seven days until a fateful dinner with her anti-Semitic family. Despite her refusal to answer his daily letters or see him, he has come from St. Louis to propose on this Fourth of July, 1944.

In a dilapidated boathouse fashioned like a gazebo, Matt cajoles Sally and diverts her attention to buy time and investigate the “mystery” of a beautiful woman who’s inexplicably afraid of love.

Wilson’s love story oddly includes dark tangents about American labor practices, greedy businessmen, bigotry and the future problems of postwar prosperity that carry over into the other Talley family plays--”Talley & Son” and “Fifth of July.” The most simply structured of the three, this play is also the most sweetly ironic.

Desai skillfully choreographs this courtship of tentative steps between Matt’s obvious determination and Sally’s slightly abrasive exasperation, between fear and hope, the past and the present.

Silver is not as large and imposing a figure, in comparison to Parsons, as the script recommends. Yet his gentle demeanor and chiding humor play well off Parsons’ strong, intelligent Sally.

Bradley Kaye’s intimate aquamarine set seems like something from Disneyland, a confectionary as out of place in this Missouri town as these two people.

BE THERE

“Talley’s Folly,” International City Theatre at Center Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Dark on Saturday, ends July 19. $28-$30. (562) 938-4128. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.