Despite Fine Cast, ‘Smash’ Isn’t a Success

The tepid, largely unamusing and wholly unprovocative production of “Smash,” which opened Saturday at the Old Globe Theatre, has been adapted from one of the lesser novels of George Bernard Shaw.

The overriding question is not how, but why.

When there is far better Shaw for the asking--plays where the ideas and satire still snap and the male-female sparks still fly--why reach back for “An Unsocial Socialist,” a tract the great grouch wrote for a socialist magazine long before he mastered his form or content?

As adapted by the Globe’s playwright-in-residence Jeffrey Hatcher, “Smash” has the usual Shavian hobbyhorses: capitalism versus socialism, do-gooders versus men of action, the working class versus the leisure class.

In his great works, Shaw’s ideas and outsized characters have survived the test of time and changing political sensibilities. Does anyone doubt that industrialist Andrew Undershaft from “Major Barbara” would fit perfectly at Enron?

In “Smash”--the title comes from a line about the need to “smash” the old civilization--the half-formed ideas are now musty and the characters smallish.

“The poor don’t want bread and gruel, they want power,” says millionaire-socialist Sidney Trefusis (played by Charles Borland) as he dumps his gorgeous bride at the altar to go foment revolution at a girls’ boarding school.

Naturally the road to uprising does not go straight, and there are class- and gender-based complications.

Harnessed to a weak and obvious script, the cast does its best, particularly the supporting players.

Veteran stage-screen actor Paul Benedict is the school’s aging custodian Lumpkin who punctures the upper classes from behind a booze-soaked beard. Priscilla Allen brings gravitas to the ironfisted Miss Wilson, the headmistress.

Michael Kary is suitably silly as the lovesick pedant Chichester Erskine, and Eric Martin Brown is fine as the foppish Sir Charles Brandon.

Jack Ryland as the moneyed Mr. Jansenius delivers some of the best lines: “I respect the honest animosity of my lessers.” His paean to upper-class ignorance is a delight.

More is asked of the leads: Borland, Jennifer Roszell as the dumped Henrietta and Laurel Moglen as the fiery student radical Agatha Wylie. Unfortunately the text provides little support.

The shame of “Smash” is its waste of a fine cast. Maybe things will be different when actors rise up and seize the means of production.

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“Smash,” adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from a novel by George Bernard Shaw, runs through July 6 at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. Tuesday-Saturday 8 p.m., Sunday 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 2 p.m., tickets $25-$50. Box office: (619) 239-2255.

Priscilla Allen...Miss Wilson

Paul Benedict...Lumpkin

Charles Borland...Sidney Trefusis

Eric Martin Brown...Sir Charles Brandon

Michael Kary...Chichester Erskine

Laurel Moglen...Agatha Wylie

Jennifer Roszell...Henrietta Trefusis

Jack Ryland...Mr. Jansenius

Directed by Karen Carpenter, customer designer Bobby Wojewodski, sound designer Paul Peterson, scene designer Scott Bradley, lighting manager Aaron Copp.