Being a normal family is a tough act to pull off
IN 2003, writer/actor David Landsberg got hit with a massive heart attack, one that brought him within 20 minutes of meeting the late David Landsberg. And he’s making the most of it. “Now I can do anything I want, because I’m dying,” he jokes. “This is my time to be an artist.”
Thus, after a long television career -- as head scribe and top producer of shows such as “Blossom,” “Herman’s Head” and “Cosby,” Landsberg took a chunk of his newfound borrowed time to concoct the comedy “Act of Love,” world-premiering at Burbank’s Falcon Theatre.
It’s an opportunity to toss up something a little different on the American stage, Landsberg says. In his newly divorced lead, Peter Sandusky (Timothy Hornor), Landsberg sought to create that most underappreciated character: the regular guy. “Cinderella doesn’t sing ‘Someday my insurance salesman will come,’ ” he notes. “Sandusky’s not a neurosurgeon or an architect, something that makes people go ‘oooh.’ But he’s a good man.”
Brisk, with a sitcom setting, some unexpected tonal shifts and one very unusual wardrobe choice, “Act of Love” centers around Sandusky’s first post-divorce outing: a blind date with Maureen (Beth Kennedy). Forced to share this momentous evening with his self-absorbed, would-be actress of a mother (Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Susan Sullivan) and tattooed sister (Hedy Burress), the beleaguered Sandusky resorts to paying his mom to play the part of a loving mother for 24 hours.
While not autobiographical, the play is grounded in personal experience. “It took me awhile to make peace with who my mother was,” Landsberg says of the woman he lovingly describes as a “sweet neurotic.” “You have to surrender to what is, not what was or will be.”
And that’s a lesson that just keeps coming up, Landsberg says. He had planned to direct this production as well, until an adverse reaction to his various heart medications hijacked his health in December, at which point award-winning theater director Casey Stangl stepped in.
A Falcon veteran herself, Stangl says she makes it a habit to direct new works whenever possible, but “Act of Love” also hooked her with its touches of emotional complexity. “What [Sullivan’s] doing in these acting moments is funny, but it’s also kind of heartbreaking,” she says. “Walking the line between comedic and serious, that’s where the play is at its most interesting for me.
“The other part of it is a philosophical notion,” she continues. “The idea that we can become what we pretend to be. In a simplistic way, if you smile a lot you’ll be happier. Here the mother’s transforming just by acting.”
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-- Mindy.Farabee@latimes.com
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‘ACT OF LOVE’
WHERE: Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank
WHEN: Opens 8 p.m. Fri.; runs 8 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 4 p.m. Sun.; ends April 27
PRICE: $25-$37.50
INFO: (818) 955-8101; www.falcontheatre.com