Deft Comedic Touches Add Extra Sparkle to ‘Stella by Starlight’

With “Stella by Starlight,” Laguna Playhouse presents its second U.S. premiere of a comedy by the Irish writer Bernard Farrell. This one is better than the initial outing in 2000, “Kevin’s Bed.” With plenty of sharply observed comedy that goes beyond one-liners, “Stella by Starlight” twinkles often enough that more Farrell premieres are warranted.

Like the plays of Richard Dresser, an American whose work Laguna has also been championing, Farrell takes gleeful aim at the foibles of the upwardly striving middle class--but also establishes sympathy for at least some of the strivers. Both writers share the milieu of the great Alan Ayckbourn, and if they aren’t yet up to the English writer’s standard, they’re moving closer.

With her husband, Dermot, and daughter Tara, 43-year-old Stella has left the urbanity of Dublin for a remote converted farmhouse in the hills. Apparently supported by the severance pay from his last corporate job, Dermot keeps busy, refurbishing the fixer-upper and indulging in his passion for astronomy. But Stella, who had worked at a bank in Dublin, feels cut off and alone.

The reasons for the move, which was Dermot’s idea, are never explicitly discussed. But we can surmise that one of the attractions was the brightness of the rural night skies. He has installed a couple of telescopes in his newly built conservatory. On this particular night, his fellow amateur astronomers on the Internet have asked him to take photos of a comet as it crashes into Jupiter.

That’s not the only impending crash. Arriving soon are another married couple, Geraldine and Paul. She’s Stella’s friend from the bank, and he was once Dermot’s professional colleague. However, Dermot is skeptical of Paul’s ability to survive the downsizing that cost Dermot his job. Further complicating matters is the memory of who formerly went out with whom, years ago. Stella and Paul were a couple--and so, briefly, were Geraldine and Dermot.

Teenage Tara, too, has ambitions for the evening. She’s going to a dance with a man her parents have never met, and she has embellished his credentials.

At first Stella is the only passive character. Her husband is a control freak who scornfully dismisses her attempts to help, insists that she wear uncomfortable contact lenses instead of glasses, and--just before the guests arrive--assigns her to take a quick walk in the night air so that Geraldine and Paul will be impressed with the advantages of rustic recreation.

Stella’s headaches mount when Paul starts wooing her. Even gal pal Geraldine needs a big favor.

The fuses of all the other characters are shorter that Stella’s, so much so that we wonder when Stella, too, might ignite. Actress Amelia White charts the changes in Stella’s temperament with a fine, subtle hand. Pudgy in frame, blinking from her uncomfortable contacts, thrust into one scrape or dilemma after another, she engenders her full share of sympathetic laughter.

In casting the statuesque Bairbre Dowling as Geraldine, director Andrew Barnicle found a nimble farceur who’s physically the opposite of White, and the contrast makes their conversations funnier.

Dermot and Paul are also opposite in many ways, yet they are equally unsympathetic. Warren Sweeney’s Dermot is a bitter ball of pent-up tensions trying, on occasion, to appear relaxed and comfortable. He’s a little too unlikable to make his last-scene repentance and reconciliation wholly credible. Thomas MacGreevy doesn’t get very far beneath Paul’s oily surface and swallows a few of his more critical lines.

Caitlin Shannon plays the aggravated teenager well, but Joel Moore virtually steals the show in his scenes as her unprepossessing beau. With his angular limbs, big nose and goofy outfit, he looks like a younger Irish cousin of “Seinfeld’s” Kramer.

Dwight Richard Odle’s sets and Julie Keen’s costumes help outline the characters’ keen awareness of social status. The depiction of the comet crash isn’t quite as graphic as the script suggests, but it works well enough.

*

“Stella by Starlight,” Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends with the matinee on March 17. $38-$45. (949) 497-2787. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Amelia White ... Stella

Warren Sweeney ... Dermot

Bairbre Dowling ... Geraldine

Thomas MacGreevy ... Paul

Caitlin Shannon ... Tara

Joel Moore ... Tommy

Written by Bernard Farrell. Directed by Andrew Barnicle. Set by Dwight Richard Odle. Lighting by Paulie Jenkins. Costumes by Julie Keen. Sound by David Edwards. Production stage manager John Lowe.