Theater : An Old-Fashioned ‘Beau Jest’ Needs Trim but Redeems Itself

Imagine a play that’s something of a hybrid of Wendy Wasserstein’s 1984 “Isn’t It Romantic” and Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick’s 1970 “Norman Is that You?” (if you can remember back to the antediluvian ‘70s), and you may come up with James Sherman’s “Beau Jest.”

More or less. Here and there. Now and then. But there’s no question that the light comedy that opened Saturday at the Westwood Playhouse is of the old-fashioned variety: A three-act bauble that would benefit from being shaved to two, since the middle act is perilously windy and filled with deja that was vu in Act One.

The title itself, “Beau Jest,” is something of a far-fetched play on words about two Gentile beaus and the jest to which they are submitted by their well-meaning, guilt-ridden Jewish girlfriend, Sarah Goldman (Laura Patinkin).

Sarah’s just your normal, stereotypical adult Jewish-American daughter, duty-bound to please her parents at any cost.

After all, have they ever wanted anything for her other than her eternal happiness, like it or not?

That quotient of bliss definitely does not include a boyfriend who is not Jewish. Which happens to be the kind Sarah has at the moment. In her misguided efforts to keep her parents placated and her boyfriend religiously correct, she invents one, an ideal one--say, a Jewish doctor--then finds herself faced with having to hire a professional to impersonate him.

Can you guess the rest?

You probably can. Nothing here is too deep or too demanding. We are put through 2 1/2 dinner scenes--one too many--with the Goldman clan.

Divorced brother Joel (Rob LaBelle), father Abe (Bernie Landis) and mother Miriam (Roslyn Alexander) bask in the presence of impostor Bob (Joe Warren Davis), an actor by choice and professional escort by necessity, who proves remarkably resourceful at becoming the desired Jewish surgeon under unusual circumstances and with no rehearsal.

Taken at face value, “Beau Jest” can be described as a perceptive, pleasantly performed entertainment that amiably serves you Mrs. Goldman’s kugel at intermission (for a fee). It is likely to find its audience in Los Angeles as it has in New York, where it has been running for more than a year.

This will be thanks to the engaging members of the original New York cast--Patinkin, Davis, Landis and Alexander--who re-create their roles here and who, in the case of the first two, are extremely winning and, in the case of the last two, are sharply rendered, comical stereotypes.

But the stereotyping in “Beau Jest” is also dangerously close to extreme. This, to be charitable, can be tiresome if not worse, while the cliched second-act Seder virtually requires you to have a Jewish background if it’s to amuse.

Production design by Bruce Goodrich is adequate and director Dennis Zacek, who staged the original version of the play at his Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago and again in New York, runs a fairly tight ship. But he might have done the playwright a real service by insisting on more judicious editing and more developed peripheral characters. We want to know more about brother Joel and bland boyfriend Chris (Guy Mount).

The third act redeems what would otherwise have been thin gruel. Playwright Sherman finally forces his characters to come to grips with fairly serious issues. Sarah musters the courage to become herself and discovers in the process that her parents are less formidable than she feared.

It’s a well-wrought act that digs deeper than the jack-hammering one-liners that precede it, but it should have started sooner. Sherman is good at exploiting cultural idiosyncrasy to comic advantage, which is cute, but in the end not even as sustaining as Mrs. Goldman’s kugel .

* “Beau Jest,” Westwood Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Indefinitely. $25-$32.50; (310) 208-5454, (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Laura Patinkin: Sarah Joe Warren Davis: Bob Roslyn Alexander: Miriam Bernie Landis: Abe Guy Mount: Chris Rob LaBelle: Joel

Producers Arthur Cantor, Carol Ostrow. Director Dennis Zacek. Playwright James Sherman. Production design Bruce Goodrich. Consultant Laura Heller. Company manager Mindy Schwartz. Production stage manager Jim Ring.