‘Open House’ Needs a Little Cleaning Up

Tom Donahue’s roughly written comedy “Open House,” about two septuagenarian sisters being tricked into selling their Victorian home, depends upon shtick too much in the first half, but the momentum picks up with the later addition of interesting and engagingly played characters.

Tightening up the pace of the first act would help, but for the most part director David Billotti’s comic instincts run true in this American Renegade Theatre Company production at the Sweet Lies Theatre.

For 20 years, widow Leonie (Pat Crawford Brown) and her sister Louise (Helen Siff) have lived together in the house their father built, but Leonie hasn’t been paying taxes. The IRS finally figures this out, and Leonie’s sleazy son Nathan (Duff Dugan) schemes to turn a profit on this problem. Telling his mother she needs to sell the house, Nathan puts his girlfriend Sheila (Lee Wylde) in charge. The open house attracts some colorful characters--gay channelers/exorcists, yuppies, burglars casing their next job, all played with over-the-top hilarity.

As the gay couple, Todd C. Mooney and Roberto Bacalski are frothily funny while Greg Lee and Koury Brown also are wonderfully dense as the two stupid burglars.

Donahue’s script creaks with predictability and the need to over-explain the predictable. The happy ending sloppily defies all legality and knowledge of the IRS. Some editing and rewrites could make this trifle sparkle.

*

* “Open House,” Sweet Lies Theatre, 11050 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Beginning June 4, Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends July 3. $12. (818) 763-4430. Running time: 2 hours.