THEATER REVIEW:

“eLove, a Musical.com/edy,” now playing at Burbank’s Victory Theatre Center, is cute. But “cute” doesn’t always mean “good.” In this case, “cute” mostly means “superficial.”

It’s like going to the theater expecting to see something original and creative, only to find yourself watching reruns of a 1970s situational comedy that wasn’t unique the first time out.

The musical is about an older man and woman, who’ve been told they are extremely compatible by an Internet dating service. The play takes place one night while they are communicating online.

On TV, a mediocre sitcom is over at the end of a 20-minute script, give or take 10 minutes’ worth of commercials. No problem. You’re home, so you can get up and turn the channel if you want to, or walk into the kitchen and grab a soda. But “eLove” isn’t a TV show. It’s a musical that runs a little less than 90 minutes, with no intermission.

Those sitcoms had loyal fans. “eLove” shouldn’t be an exception. There’s enough that’s sweet and innocuously silly about “eLove” to satisfy those blessed audience members who find the good in anything they watch, as long as it isn’t mean or obscene.

What’s so important about incorporating honesty, courage, or pain into a bouncy, musical night out? Just the fact that “eLove” is about two people older than 50, looking for romance with hope in their hearts, lends the show some weight.

There were an awful lot of talented actors in those old TV shows. Lloyd Pedersen as eBoy and Bobbi Stamm as eGirl are just as professional and dependable — ready, willing and open to giving their best. But that’s not what they’re asked to give. Instead, they’re asked to mug outrageously while talking and singing incessantly to themselves or to their computers.

They’re asked to think and act like teenagers. They’re asked to pretend that they have emotional connections to a pet fish made out of neon plastic (Hers) or a large pet turtle that never moves off of its shallow plate (His).

They’re asked to “sell” jokes like: “I just had plastic surgery,” or “I cut up my credit cards.” It’s not their fault that the script avoids the painful reality of what it’s like to be single and older than 50, with no children, no church and no network of close friends. It’s not their fault that this man and this woman aren’t free to feel perfectly happy being alone with themselves on a Saturday night.

It’s also not the fault of director/choreographer Cate Caplin, who took over directing duties from author Wayland Pickard when “eLove” moved out of the NoHo Arts Center last year. At the Victory, Caplin’s actors are always working only a few feet from the audience, on a very small stage with not one, but two different living room sets, and a pair of actors who seem to have been told somewhere down the line that “bigger is funnier.”

This means that the credit for what’s good and bad in “eLove” begins and ends with the script by Pickard. Pickard is undoubtedly an energetic and talented man. He can and he has gotten this show up and running on a professional level, twice. He’s written 13 pleasant songs that flow naturally out of the dialogue.

When it comes to jokes, he’s written some awful groaners and gotten away with it, just like those well-paid sitcom writers from the past. But he’s like an unseen presence, sitting center stage at all times, requiring both of his characters to work around his viewpoints, when they should have new and fresh perspectives of their own.

 MARY BURKIN is a Burbank actress and playwright and Glendale lawyer.