Wistfulness and humor in aging

Prediction: Plays about people in their 60s and 70s are about to become more popular, as baby boomers approach their 60s.

“Morning’s at Seven” will certainly encourage this trend. Although its setting, a small Midwestern town in 1938, may seem remote, Paul Osborn’s beguiling 1939 comedy is ideally constructed for baby boomers’ concerns.

In fact, most of the characters -- despite their particular ages -- are facing what are now referred to as midlife crises, in which long-held assumptions are suddenly challenged by the ticking clock. However, none of them has yet to encounter the physical indignities of extreme old age. So boomers can look at them and glimpse a bit of themselves while preserving the reassuring feeling that these somewhat older people are not yet at the end of their rope.

Indeed, the gifted cast at the Ahmanson Theatre looks as spry as the play itself, despite the characters’ agonizing little quandaries.

Three of the four sisters at the heart of the play live in two houses that are next door to each other -- only a few feet apart on John Lee Beatty’s handsome Norman Rockwellian set -- while the fourth lives a few blocks away.

Although these families aren’t rich, there is no indication that any of the sisters ever held a job outside the home or that financial considerations ever seemed pressing. The Depression seems very distant.

Three of the four sisters are housewives. The only one who didn’t marry, Aaronetta (Elizabeth Franz), is regarded as an old maid and a hanger-on by her sister Cora (Mary Louise Wilson), with whom she has lived all these decades.

But Cora’s husband Thor (William Biff McGuire) is more tolerant. Next door, the third sister Ida (Frances Sternhagen) is coping with her husband Carl (Paul Dooley), who appears to be having a nervous breakdown as he ponders what else he might have done with his life. He keeps referring to “the fork” where he apparently made a wrong turn.

Meanwhile, on the day when the play opens, Ida’s and Carl’s 40-year-old son Homer (Stephen Tobolowsky) is finally bringing home his fiancee Myrtle (Julie Hagerty), who lives in a nearby town, so she can meet his folks, aunts and uncles. They’ve been engaged for seven years, but mama’s-boy Homer is reluctant to leave Ida, especially when his father is acting so strangely.

A few blocks away, the fourth sister Esther (Piper Laurie) is in a skirmish with her prickly spouse David (Buck Henry). He regards Esther’s relations as “morons,” with the possible exception of Carl. David has decreed that any visit by Esther to her sisters is grounds for separation -- within the same house, that is. David will live on the first floor while Esther inhabits the second.

This is a Lincoln Center production that earned nine Tony nominations earlier this year. Director Daniel Sullivan regrouped most of his stellar cast, and they work together with a cohesion that reflects months of togetherness.

Although it’s difficult to pick stars out of such an ensemble, the showiest sister role is Franz’s rancorous Aaronetta. Last seen on this stage as Linda Loman in “Death of a Salesman,” Franz creates a snarling little woman whose attempts to stake out her own claim to happiness seem alternately poignant and poisonous. Franz is also blessed with the funniest moment in the play, a third-act climax that is an irresistible tribute to Osborn’s craftsmanship, even as it deprives the play of some thematic weight.

The newcomer to the cast’s sister quartet is Wilson as Cora, locked in combat with Aaronetta. Wilson adeptly crinkles her features to furnish a more subtle variation on some of the same emotions evoked by Franz, yet she also unleashes a surprisingly horsy yet winning laugh.

Sternhagen has Ida’s fluttery demeanor well in hand, while Laurie’s Esther is her rock-solid opposite. The prints on the women’s dresses, designed by Jane Greenwood, have enough color to mitigate the dowdiness of the style.

The younger couple provides adroit comedy throughout. Tobolowsky, who directed a revival of this play for Theatre 40 in 1999, has the mannerisms of a younger, geekier Al Gore, while Hagerty’s patented girlish voice is ideal for a stiff exchange of small talk with her mother-in-law that is almost reminiscent of the dialogues in “The Bald Soprano.”

Among the older men, McGuire’s Thor retains an amusingly dry perspective, while Dooley’s Carl is equally funny as he is swept away by his visions of the road not taken. But Henry doesn’t have the vocal power that might make David’s disdain truly biting.

The title of the play was taken from Robert Browning’s poem that includes the sentiment “All’s right with the world,” and it was surely intended to be somewhat ironic. Still, you would never know from this play that a world war was waiting in the wings. The world here seems to be doing well enough, allowing for a lot of foolishness from human beings along the way.

*

‘Morning’s at Seven’

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Also next Thursday, Jan. 9 and 23, 2 p.m.; Dec. 30, 8 p.m. Dark Dec. 24-25, Jan. 1.

Ends: Jan. 26, 2 p.m.

Price: $20-$60.

Contact: (213) 628-2772.

Running Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Mary Louise Wilson...

Cora Swanson

Elizabeth Franz...

Aaronetta Gibbs

Frances Sternhagen...Ida Bolton

Piper Laurie...Esther Crampton

William Biff McGuire...

Theodore (Thor) Swanson

Paul Dooley...Carl Bolton

Buck Henry...David Crampton

Stephen Tobolowsky...Homer Bolton

Julie Hagerty...Myrtle Brown

By Paul Osborn. Directed by Daniel Sullivan. Sets by John Lee Beatty. Costumes by Jane Greenwood. Lighting by Brian MacDevitt. Sound by Scott Myers. Wigs and hair by Paul Huntley. Production stage manager Roy Harris.