Family Party Not Much Fun for Audience

Something about Norway breeds playwrights, though it should be quickly noted that Norwegian-American playwright Phil Olson is no Henrik Ibsen.

Olson, however, has two things most successful theater scribes yearn for: a subject he’s happy to repeatedly mine and a steady relationship with a theater that will stage his work. This is something, even if his work is so far only mediocre.

A few seasons ago, Group Repertory Theatre produced Olson’s tepidly amusing “Crappie Talk.” Now that the theater is renamed Lonny Chapman’s Group Repertory Theatre, Olson is back with a more personal and more crafted comedy, “A Nice Family Gathering.” Like the earlier piece, it’s just a step above sitcom, and it comes this close to suggesting that the people he regularly depicts--Minnesotans all--are likable but undoubtedly dim in the head.

In the end, though, Olson likes the people he writes about, and we sense that they’re closely modeled on ones he’s lived with. Despite the title’s suggested sarcasm, there’s not an ounce of guile in “Family Gathering,” even if it seems we’ve been down this family dramedy road many times before.

Olson plays himself--and not very well--as sour Carl, the middle sibling in the Lundeen family, which lost Dad 10 months before. Now, just before Mom (Bonnie Snyder) is hosting everyone for Thanksgiving, Carl is confronted Hamlet-like by Dad’s ghost (Bert Kramer), who insists that Carl tell Mom that he loved her even if he never told her. Carl’s the one who feels unloved, though, and tries to resist bending to Dad’s will.

This leads predictably to a lot of forced, silly business with Carl appearing to talk to himself (he’s the only one who can see the ghost) while family members stare, but it’s not quite as unfunny as the stereotypes parading around the stage. Snyder’s character looks as if she’s bordering on Alzheimer’s, and it’s weakly played for laughs. Older brother Michael (Vince Cefalu) and fertility drug-addled Jill (Mary Jo Niedzielski) are cartoons of unhappy yuppies in too much debt, while younger sis Stacy (Kit Paraventi) is so meek that she’s virtually ignored by all.

Olson misses a lot of comic depth here, even some things he appears to be setting up but doesn’t follow through on. (Dad and Stacy as twin ghosts, for instance.) Act I is so lighter-than-air that it hardly feels like a play at all, and Olson relies more on situations and exaggerated behavior than real character depth to push his comedy to a more complicated level in Act II. He still manages to convince an audience that a good heart is behind all this family silliness, and even if it really is awfully contrived, we sense a writer who truly believes in what he’s writing.

Olson doesn’t help his cause as an actor--he’s so stiff you want to give him a massage--but he’s otherwise assisted by director Patrick Maloney, who has a light touch with this kind of familiar family material. Cefalu and Niedzielski go in for mugging, but the remaining performances are fine, boosted by Chris Winfield’s vital support as Dad’s visiting pal, who may or may not have a hidden agenda.

BE THERE

“A Nice Family Gathering,” Lonny Chapman’s Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Runs indefinitely. $16. (818) 769-7529. Running time: 2 hours.