STAGE REVIEW : ‘Melody Sisters’ Comes Across as Way Out of Tune

SAN DIEGO —  The best moment in “The Melody Sisters” at the Hahn Cosmopolitan is the last moment.

That’s partly because the Melody Sisters finally stop whining and carping at that point and sing--melodiously. It’s also because the number signifies the blessed end of a show that grows painfully longer as the evening goes on.

There is a nagging sense that this Gaslamp Quarter Theatre show could be better than it is. Maybe if director James A. Strait stepped up the pace. Maybe if the ensemble of actresses worked harder at seeming like a family. Maybe if playwright Anne Commire had written some depth into these characters instead of sketching them so thinly that the program becomes indispensable for telling them apart.

The idea is not a bad one. Six middle-aged sisters, who had one hit years ago when they were a singing troupe, are asked to re-create their old hit in a nostalgia show for the Queen of England at the Palladium.

The concert forces a reunion that makes each sister come to terms with the intervening years. But when asked to come up with an intimation of where life’s journeys can take six siblings, what does playwright Commire deliver? Freda (Mary Boersma) wears a bathrobe all the time. Dia (Mimi Smith) is bored with her husband. Rowe (Roberta Linn) likes to shop. Shay (Jeanne Reith) is frightened of trying anything new. Joyce (Nanci Hunter) believes a fortune teller who told her at age 10 that she was going to die before her 43rd birthday--the next one up.

Thank goodness for Beverly Bremers as Marce, the sister sprung from a nut house to complete the sextet. As the only live wire, Marce ultimately breathes whatever life there is into these wooden proceedings.

But first, the audience has to wait an entire act before Marce drops the medication that is making her walk and talk s-o-o s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y. Even then, there is no real insight either into her madness or why she drives everybody so crazy. So she rings neighbors’ doorbells at 6 o’clock in the morning and runs away, giggling, before they answer. So she blows bubbles in public places. It hardly makes you sympathize with her up-tight sisters, who treat her as if she is a menace against society.

If the playwright had passed up character development in favor of treating the audience to a rousing good bash of nostalgic small group singing--or even more than one song by these pretty sharp vocalists--the evening might have been saved.

But this show gives neither harmony nor depth, except in the most microscopic and unsatisfying portions.

The usually inventive set designer, Robert Earl, also seems uninspired by the show; the basement in which the sisters rehearse reveals nothing about the sister, Shay, who lives there. The sound by Jon Gottlieb is equally puzzling. Is the music between the set changes by the sisters or just of that era? Then, too, the offstage voices of Shay’s children sound forced and unnatural.

The costumes by Dianne Holly are, as usual, lovely and done with a sense of humor as they show the sisters trying to re-create the past with billows of blue, and ultimately accepting the present with simple, slinky elegance in maroon.

There’s a nice cameo by the Gaslamp’s resident prop mistress, Barbara Krepps, as the glamorous seated lady at the Palladium who tries so hard not to be mortified when bubble-blowing Marce plops down beside her.

“MELODY SISTERS”

By Anne Commire. Director is James A. Strait. Sets by Robert Earl. Lighting by Matthew Cubitto. Costumes by Dianne Holly. Sound by Jon Gottlieb. Stage manager is Diane E. Willcox. With Mary Boersma, Beverly Bremers, Nanci Hunter, Barbara Krepps, Roberta Linn, Jeanne Reith and Mimi Smith.

Performances at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. through Oct. 22. Tickets are $17-19. Call 234-9583. At 444 4th Ave., San Diego.