Couple of Actors Don’t Stand Ghost of Chance

Sometimes playwrights take unfair advantage of unwary actors and directors. Paul Rudnick does it twice in “I Hate Hamlet” at Orange Coast College’s Drama Lab Studio.

First, he has an actor playing Andrew Rally, a successful television actor who is about to go onstage as Hamlet for Joe Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park in New York. A formidable task for a performer, to convince the audience that this small-screen actor is so talented he can handle Shakespeare.

Rally moves into a Greenwich Village apartment once inhabited by the legendary John Barrymore. Of course, Barrymore comes back to life to belittle and coach Rally.

For this to work, and this is Rudnick’s second stumbling block, the actor playing Barrymore mustn’t do an impression of Barrymore, but must at least try to capture his essence. He was sometimes a ham, but a brilliant ham, like the late George C. Scott and very few others.

Under director Frank Miyashiro’s fairly theatrical guidance, Norm Leonard as Rally passes as a successful television actor, but his brief readings from Shakespeare’s classic are proof that he would never pass an audition for Papp’s company, even as an extra. Leonard has a good stage presence, but comic timing and the complexity of this role elude him.

John Synco has a bigger problem as Barrymore. It’s not his fault. No one told him what Barrymore was like. Dressed in a costume similar to Barrymore’s Hamlet garb, he prances and poses like a ballet dancer, wafts his hands about as though he’s conducting a silent orchestra, and speaks most of his lines looking up at the stage lights. Rudnick’s conceit is dissipated, and the comic balance between the two acting generations is lost.

Miyashiro keeps things moving along at a briskly humorous pace but should have taken more care with his two leads.

That might have helped spur better comic performances out of Sean Gray as an aggressively stereotypical Hollywood type, and Ana Gremard as Rally’s elderly agent. They ride the surface of the dialogue without getting their toes wet.

Jodi Grigas as the ambitious real estate broker who lands Rally the Barrymore apartment, and Shelli Secor as Rally’s ditsy girlfriend, fares better. Grigas has an authority that helps, and Secor easily combines a kooky girlishness with some of Ophelia’s otherworldliness to very comic effect.

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“I Hate Hamlet,” Drama Lab Studio, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $5-$6. (714)432-5640, Ext 1. Running time: 2 hours.

Norm Leonard: Andrew Rally

John Synco: John Barrymore

Shelli Secor: Deirdre McDavy

Sean Gray: Gary Peter Lefkowitz

Ana Gremard: Lillian Troy

Jodi Grigas: Felicia Dantine

An Orange Coast College Theatre Repertory production of Paul Rudnick’s comedy. Directed by Frank Miyashiro. Assistant director: Sean Gray. Scenic design: Stephen Moore, David Scaglione. Lighting design: Shawn Shryer. Sound design: Sean Gray, Frank Miyashiro. Costume design: Paul Williams, Cynthia Corley.