A bracing draft in ‘Lungfish’

Salty mixed with sweet can be a savory combination, as long as you go easy on the sugar. “Wrong Turn at Lungfish” at the Falcon Theatre has plenty of tasteful bite but occasionally lapses into syrupy sentimentality.

Fortunately, a crack cast, led by Garry Marshall, who co-wrote the play with veteran screenwriter Lowell Ganz (“Splash,” “Parenthood”), manipulates what could have been a gelatinous confection to a pleasingly brittle consistency.

The play, which starred George C. Scott in its 1993 off-Broadway run, has received a somewhat cursory updating, mainly consisting of tacked-on references to reality shows and EBay. The basic plot, however, revolves around brilliant, curmudgeonly college dean Peter Ravenswaal (Hector Elizondo), recently blinded by an unnamed malady that is quickly killing him. Confined to a hospital bed, Ravenswaal rages against the dying of his light to a degree that has completely alienated the entire hospital staff, including the feisty student nurse (gamine Joanna Canton), who reluctantly cares for him. However, volunteer reader Anita (Ana Ortiz), an uneducated naif routinely abused by her petty-criminal boyfriend (effective Jason Gedrick), forms a bittersweet bond with Ravenswaal that not only gives purpose to the dying dean but changes the course of her own life forever.

It’s all just a tad shopworn, in a derivative “Educating Rita” sort of way. And one has a moment or two of disquiet over the essential dynamic -- namely, a sage older man giving the benefit of his vast experience to a ditzy, sexy young woman. Why is it that a gender reversal -- pedantic older woman holding forth to dumb young guy -- wouldn’t seem as innately comical? (Even Harold was the cerebral one, Maude the colorfully eccentric oldster.) But whiffs of sexism aside, Marshall and Ganz are proven craftsmen, and although their construct is somewhat obvious, it is also solid, shored up with intelligence and wit.

If the writing sometimes takes an easy path, Elizondo, to his great credit, never does. An old associate of Marshall, Elizondo has appeared in all of Marshall’s hit films, including “Pretty Woman” and “The Princess Diaries.” In the late 1980s, Elizondo performed Ravenswaal at an early reading of the play. Certainly, at that point in his career, he was too young to pull off the role. Now this Obie- and Emmy-winning veteran is ripe for Ravenswaal, and he takes full advantage of his opportunities, never striving for laughs but finding humor in the truthfulness of his characterization. His is an exacting, even austere portrayal, wry and well timed.

Truthful too is the formidable Ortiz in a role that could easily have degenerated into the cutesy. Ortiz is simply adorable without being at all conscious of that fact -- a key attribute that makes her character sympathetic and richly believable.

Canton and Gedrick are also fine, but the real business of the evening is the crackling dialectic between book-smart Ravenswaal and street-smart Anita. In Marshall’s sensitive staging, Elizondo and Ortiz find the depth and gravity beneath their comical creations and give us a good time in the process.

*

‘Wrong Turn at Lungfish’

Where: Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank

When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays

Ends: Nov. 14

Price: $30 to $37.50

Contact: (818) 955-8101

Running time: 2 hours