Review: ‘Under My Skin’ may get under yours
Connoisseurs of really bad television — you know you’re out there — whose taste for schlock hasn’t been satisfied by the mediocre new fall season should run to the Pasadena Playhouse to see “Under My Skin.” The title is meant to be romantic, but anyone who manages to sit through both irritating acts of this lowest-common-denominator comedy will know that the truth is far more painfully dermatological.
Some might consider this a sitcom performed live, an evening’s escapist entertainment, a harmless piece of fluff. They should get out of the house more. Actually, it’s not fair to compare this to television. It’s hard to imagine any network or cable executive giving the green light to this theatrical blooper reel, a combination of “Working Girl” and one of those body swap comedies in which two polar opposite souls (ha, ha, ha) get the switcheroo.
More’s the pity that the actors, under the direction of Marcia Milgrom Dodge (the Tony-nominated director of “Ragtime,” who ought to know better), are so full of conviction. These are roles that should be played in quotation marks as camp parody. Served up straight, the characters have a case for legal action against their authors, Robert Sternin and Prudence Fraser, married TV writers with a résumé that includes the Fran Drescher vehicles “The Nanny” and “Happily Divorced.” Surely there must be libel laws on the books to protect poor defenseless fictional creatures against the indignity of such jejune representation.
Here’s a one-minute story line pitch: Cute Staten Island single mom living with her doddering grandpa and bratty daughter dies in a freak elevator accident at her temp job along with the hot, mercenary CEO of the profiteering heathcare company where she works. A sassy angel brings them back to life but accidentally mixes up their souls, so that each gets to learn (this is important here!) what it’s like to live in the other’s shoes.
For self-effacing Melody Dent (Erin Cardillo), that means moving to a fancy New York apartment, getting accustomed to untimely erections and delivering skin-crawling speeches to the board of directors. For arrogant Harrison Badish (Matt Walton), that means learning to walk in heels, accepting the responsibility of being a caretaker and contending with a diagnosis of Stage 1 uterine cancer.
Yes, in addition to being the world’s most predictable rom-com, “Under My Skin” is also a broad satire of the healthcare system. So if you like your stale taffy vitamin enriched, this is your show. I’m just boggled by Pasadena Playhouse’s utter disregard for credible artistic standards. It’s also a mystery why Hal Linden, much beloved for his classic portrayal of TV police captain Barney Miller, would consent to play a stage grandfather forced to deliver shtick that no one could freshen.
The cast is certainly lively — Yvette Cason’s snappy, streetwise Angel and Megan Sikora as Melody’s party-hearty sidekick practically do cartwheels for laughs. But nothing can prevent this dead-on-arrival show from being shipped straight to the comedy morgue.
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