Shaw’s ‘Heartbreak House’ Just About Right

Until he received from Tyrone Guthrie the “richest pearl of advice” in his life, Laurence Olivier had a lousy time playing the stuffed military shirt, Sergius, in George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man.” Guthrie’s advice: Find a way to love the guy.

So Olivier embraced the character’s “faults, his showing off, his absurdity, his bland doltishness.” He generated an animating spark of enjoyment in the role’s starch and artifice. Without it, no fun. For anyone.

It’s a handy reminder to all those playing Shaw. A Noise Within’s solid, steady rendition of Shaw’s “Heartbreak House” (written in 1916, premiering 1920) comes to life most fully when the ensemble conveys a sense of true enjoyment in the playing, without falling into cliched high spirits.

Paradoxically, you miss some of the undercurrents, the insinuating sense of longing beneath the chatter. The staging by co-directors Julia Rodriguez Elliott and Geoff Elliott is honorable, clean work all around. It’s on par with the other Noise Within productions currently in repertory, “Oedipus the King” and “What the Butler Saw.” The company takes its consistency seriously.

Yet I’d love to see a Noise Within show conveying a sense of really wrestling with a classic--and of trying out a new hold or two.

Shaw described his mournful comedy as a “fantasia in the Russian manner on English themes,” the themes involving nothing less than England’s fate and spiritual torpor (and that of “cultured, leisured Europe before the war,” in Shaw’s words). The play owes a huge debt to Chekhov. Here and there Shaw lurches from disarming drawing-room comedy to soul-peeling drama, in ways tending toward self-consciousness; the effect isn’t Chekhovian so much as Shavian trying to be Chekhovian.

But so much of this messy, generous play is so wonderful, you tend not to care about the problems.

At the Sussex home of Capt. Shotover (Mitchell Edmonds), family, friends and a burglar converge and debate and, at the end, watch the bombs explode nearby. Husbands and wives philander, at least in theory. (The sensuality in Chekhov is subtler but far more potent.) Shotover, striving to maintain “the Seventh Degree of Concentration,” finds a spiritual mate in the young visitor Ellie Dunn (Ann Marie Lee), engaged to marry the business magnate (Apollo Dukakis) who employed, and ruined, her father (William Mesnik).

The “demon” Shotover daughters, Ariadne (Anna C. Miller) and Hesione (Deborah Strang), can’t help but ensnare a wide variety of men. They have in them what Shaw called in “Man and Superman” the “Life Force.” They have also some supremely witty rejoinders. Everyone does.

Standouts in this ensemble include Edmonds, whose Shotover--even though writ small--is admirably crisp and no-nonsense. Lee’s a tad mature for Ellie but charming and intelligently wrought anyway. And in the strutting peacock role, co-director Geoff Elliott makes a fine Hector, an artfully judged mixture of silliness and dash.

Craftsmanly work of this order shouldn’t be undervalued. Yet in Act 1, especially, we could use something more than we’re getting. Everyone on stage, as written, has her or his share of revelations, moments when a hidden, quietly despairing corner of their personalities bubbles up. Then it’s quickly back to the conversational roundelay. Those moments have to register, though. Not all of them do here.

That said, the only glaring problem with A Noise Within’s “Heartbreak House” is an aural one, the unfortunately synthesized musical score by Norman L. Berman. The transitional themes (particularly the middle one) work well enough. Yet as recorded on electronic keyboard the sound is just plain wimpy. Twice, we hear a character playing a flute, when the rumbles of war begin. The least any respectable production of “Heartbreak House” deserves is the sound of a real flute.

* “Heartbreak House,” A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m.; April 24, 8 p.m.; April 25, 2 p.m.; April 29-30, 8 p.m.; May 1, 2 and 8 p.m.; May 9, 2 and 7 p.m.; May 12-14, 8 p.m.; May 16, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends May 16. $20-$38. (818) 546-1924. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.

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Heartbreak House Ann Marie Lee: Ellie Dunn

Sandra Ellis Lafferty: Nurse Guinness

Mitchell Edmonds: Captain Shotover

Anna C. Miller: Ariadne Utterword

Deborah Strang: Hesione Hushabye

William Mesnik: Mazzini Dunn

Geoff Elliott: Hector Hushabye

Apollo Dukakis: Boss Mangan

Stephen Rockwell: Randal Utterword

Burglar: James Karr

Written by George Bernard Shaw. Directed by Julia Rodriguez Elliott and Geoff Elliott. Set by Leonard Harman. Costumes by Anna Wyckoff. Lighting by Ken Booth. Music by Norman L. Berman. Stage manager Tricia Druliner.