STAGE REVIEW : ‘Sun’ Sheds Light on Quirky People

It’s easy to see why playwright Stephen Metcalfe chose to direct the inaugural production of Larry Ketron’s “Sun Bearing Down,” which opened Saturday at the Old Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage.

These men share a sensibility. Both know how to create quirky characters in off-the-wall situations that carry a certain ring of truth.

Metcalfe did that superbly in his own “Strange Snow” and “Emily,” both of which were launched at the Old Globe. Now he is back as director of a wistful comedy by Ketron that plunges us into several crises at once in a small seaside bar in South Carolina.

The bar is operated by Lamar Forester, a laconic fellow facing possible indictment for running down three trick-or-treaters the previous Halloween. Lamar wasn’t drunk or murderous. The kids were dressed in black and he just didn’t see them. In addition, he is part of a group of seashore businessmen trying to get the town to erect sea walls to keep the ocean from eroding any more of their land.

Into this situation walks Lamar’s flighty sister, Price, who was married the previous day, but is now (a) no longer married and (b) not really his sister. She has a particularly dense young college graduate named Mallory in tow and wants Lamar to give him a job.

That’s for starters. Poisoning this atmosphere in more ways than one is an ugly cracker named Cawhill, president of the town council and a fellow eagerly pursuing payoffs for votes and other political favors. We’re talking small-town politics here, and they don’t come any smaller than this.

Before this play is done, we are waist deep (or rather waste deep) in personal dilemmas, spoiled brats and environmental disasters--a particular favorite with playwrights these days, though in this case the environment more aptly qualifies as sub-theme than theme. It is there largely to propel other events towards some hard-won, bittersweet triumphs.

Ketron’s gift (not unlike Metcalfe’s) lies in making skillful use of comedy to underscore potentially tragic lives. He’s good with character. The brush stroke is broad with such villains or cartoons as Cawhill and Mallory, respectively. They are the clowns you love to laugh at. But it is pencil fine with Lamar and Price, real people with a complex circuitry.

In the scheme of things, “Sun Bearing Down” qualifies as a miniature in which you admire and enjoy the details, while having reservations about the totality of the experience. Ketron has a way of throwing in offstage events that sometimes add color, as in the snatches of information we acquire about Cawhill’s very young wife--and sometimes not, as in the hijacking of Price’s apartment by an ex-boyfriend or Lamar’s habit of visiting the parents of one of the children he killed. Hooking the larger issue of toxic-waste disposal into this small love story is awkward and could benefit from more organic assimilation.

But working with what he’s got, Metcalfe gets high marks for astute casting and staging of this Globe production. In Bill Geisslinger’s hands, Lamar is a taciturn but feeling man, with acres of dignity and a deep moral sense wrapped in his sheath of loneliness. Annette O’Toole’s Price is blissfully scatterbrained, but not to the point where it betrays the acutely vulnerable and not-so-silly person she reveals herself to be. And Adam Philipson’s arch dryness makes his Mallory New Jersey’s most appealingly self-centered jerk.

Nowhere, however, is character as richly complemented by costume as in James Harper’s get-up as Cawhill--from the girdled midriff and too-tight polyester pants, to the vain ‘50s hair sweep with mock ducktail. The designer is Robert Wojewodski.

Robert Brill designed the generic bar-room/restaurant set, Ashley York Kennedy the simple lighting and Jeff Ladman the mood-setting sound of lapping waves.

But despite its strongly localized events, “Sun Bearing Down” is not a play about place. Without being pretentious about it (Ketron certainly isn’t), it’s about life’s small victories in the face of mounting odds. Ketron, who has done some screenwriting, may well have the seeds here for a film.

* “Sun Bearing Down,” Cassius Carter Centre Stage, Simon Edison Centre for the Performing Arts, Balboa Park, San Diego. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends April 21. $21-$28.50; (619) 239-2255. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Sun Bearing Down’

Bill Geisslinger: Lamar Forester

Annette O’Toole: Price

Adam Philipson: Mallory

James Harper: Cawhill

A new play by Larry Ketron, presented by the Old Globe Theatre. Director Stephen Metcalfe. Sets Robert Brill. Lights Ashley York Kennedy. Costumes Robert Wojewodski. Sound Jeff Ladman. Stage managers Douglas Pagliotti, Peter Van Dyke.