Nostalgia, Romance Under ‘June Moon’

“June Moon,” Ring Lardner and George S. Kaufman’s comedy with music at the Colony Studio Theatre, creaks in places with its pure corniness, but this cast serves up the story of a small-town boy hoping to become a Tin Pan Alley lyricist with admirable earnestness.

Lardner and Kaufman’s story centers on a country bumpkin with a propensity for malapropism, Fred (Nick DeGruccio), who loses sight of family values. He meets the girl of the 1920s concept of domestic bliss, Edna (Maura Knowles). She’s economical, cooks, sews and is dutifully chaste. Yet he is sucked into the predatory vortex of femme fatale Eileen (Judy Walstrum), the sister-in-law of his composer partner, Paul (Al D’Andrea).

The bittersweet marital dilemma of the composer doesn’t smoothly fit into this happy-ending, morality-tale formula. However, that particular scene is given the appropriate somber note before transitioning into a happier tone.

Under the direction of David Rose, the air of saccharine sweetness mixed with mothballs doesn’t overpower.

DeGruccio is less unctuous and slick than he was in the Colony’s recent “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and his height differential with his leading lady is again played for laughs. Walstrum is more believable here as the executive’s discarded mistress, looking for fresh meat, than she was in “Business,” and Kimberley Messinger as her sarcastic, wisecracking sister Lucille is a treasure.

* “June Moon,” Colony Studio Theatre, 1944 Riverside Drive, Silver Lake. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 5. $23-$26. (323) 665-3011. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.