Zany ‘Melancholy’ laughs at the tears

“I would like to propose to you -- this evening -- a defense of melancholy.” The announcement, spoken at the start of Sarah Ruhl’s “Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce,” sounds strangely upbeat. A cellist named Julian (Michael Levin), tucked away above the stage but visible throughout, releases arty strains into the air. A psychoanalyst’s couch waits expectantly.

The subject is sadness but the colorfully lighthearted treatment -- as bright as a package of Starburst fruit chews in Son of Semele Ensemble’s staging -- makes you smile.

Tilly (Kristen Brennan), a narcissistic bank teller with flowing blond locks, visits Lorenzo (Alexander Wells), a psychiatrist with an Italian accent and opera buffa manner, to talk about the nature of her despondency. “Cheerful people are the worst sort of people,” she says languorously.

“It seems to me that you enjoy this ‘melancholy’ of yours,” the doctor sharply observes. “In fact, you seem proud of it. A little vain, even.”

Well, Tilly has good reason for being secretly pleased with her tears. No one, man or woman, can resist them. Frank (Daniel Getzoff), a tailor with a brooding streak, falls for her unhappiness while stitching her up an outfit. Frances (Elizabeth Clemmons), a hairdresser who used to be a physicist, and Joan (Natalie Hall), her nurse girlfriend, vie to become Tilly’s comforter. And not even Lorenzo is immune to his patient’s poignant charms.

This daft, zoomed-up comedy suggests that the road to romantic bliss is paved by pity. Even nuttier, the competition that breaks out for Tilly’s affection is tamed only by the irresistible depressive’s sudden reversal into manic jolliness.

Ruhl, whose other plays include “The Clean House” and “Eurydice,” is one of the most original new voices in the American theater. “Melancholy Play,” a relatively early work that received its L.A. premiere in 2005 courtesy of the Echo Theater Company, is slight, deliberately silly and verging at times on precious. It’s an exercise in zaniness that requires you to go along with such absurdities as long-separated twins whimsically reuniting and a lovelorn character turning into an almond.

Thanks to Barbara Kallir’s pinball-paced direction, a crack cast of kooks and an eye-catching pastel production design, these cutesy contrivances are surprisingly easy to accept. Your teeth might ache after the candy-coated shenanigans, but there’s sweet delight in the theatrical moment.

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charles.mcnulty@latimes.com

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‘Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce’

Where: Son of Semele Ensemble, 3301 Beverly Blvd., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: Feb. 24

Price: $15

Contact: (800) 838-3006, www.sonofsemele.org

Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes