Humor is weighty when love is lost

Yes, Nicky Silver’s satire “The Food Chain” targets our national obsession with eating, dieting and preening. But the title also refers to the hierarchy of social relationships, providing him an additional rich lode from which to mine laughs.

The Old Globe’s newly opened production of Silver’s 1995 off-Broadway hit taps deeply into that lode, stimulated by a couple of hyperactive performances. Foremost is Christa Scott-Reed as food-shunning wife Amanda, upset because her husband of three weeks has been AWOL for two of them. She spends most of the first act on the phone with Bea, a crisis counselor inclined to discuss her own problems. But Bea’s certain she’s qualified: She had a “grueling six-hour training session.”

Director Matt August keeps Amanda and Bea gliding around the Carter’s in-the-round stage, enlivening what could be a static situation. And Scott-Reed handles the animation fluidly. Marilyn Sokol, as Bea, moves more subtly but gets a peak moment when Amanda’s graphic description of a sexual encounter sends Bea into ecstasy.

Next we meet Serge, a male model who gives a whole new dimension to the term super-ego, and Otto, a former lover who’s ballooned to more than 300 pounds but wants to get back with Serge. Forget Oscar and Felix; this is truly an odd couple.

The role of Otto has to be one of the most thankless in theaterdom. He barges in with a bag full of snack food, then proceeds to munch successively on all the items, washing them down with soda. Most obnoxiously, he dribbles food all over his clothes, the furniture and the floor. He licks the center from Oreos, then tosses the outer cookies over his shoulder. He’s such an overbearing slob that he inspires sympathy for the otherwise unlikable Serge.

Michael Lluberes is good at flopping around in a feeding frenzy and a flood of words, but Otto is a major turn-off, so the laughs start to come less frequently. Wretched excess is only so amusing.

The final scene links all the people in “The Food Chain,” usually to humorous effect. Serge was the reason Amanda’s husband disappeared. Otto and Amanda were high school classmates, when she was fat and he was thin. And you can guess who is Otto’s mother, with whom he has a hate-hate relationship.

Throughout, Silver offers some wickedly funny observations about how people regard themselves and others. But again there’s that Otto-the-obnoxious factor, so how well someone likes the comedy will depend on his or her tolerance for burlesque.

Paolo Andino doesn’t quite capture Serge’s supreme arrogance, and Rod Brogan as the husband isn’t called on to do much more than stand around and look stupefied. His bunny slippers and Otto’s fat suit are the most memorable aspects of Holly Poe Durbin’s costuming.

James Noone provides the basic apartment settings, for couple and bachelor, each trim and neat until the onslaught of Otto. Chris Rynne’s lighting and Paul Peterson’s sound are noticed mainly in the accouterments for Serge’s den of seduction.

*

‘The Food Chain’

Where: Cassius Carter Centre Stage, Balboa Park, San Diego

When: Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, 7 p.m.

Ends: May 30

Price: $19-$47

Contact: (619) 239-2255

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes