THEATER REVIEW : Behan Misfits Hold Crowd ‘Hostage’

The title character in Brendan Behan’s “The Hostage” at Los Angeles Theatre Center is a British soldier (Brendan Ford) held prisoner by IRA forces in a seedy Dublin boardinghouse. Yet the real hostage is any viewer unlucky enough to sit trapped in this windy, almost insufferably quaint comedy.

Behan, like Philip Barry in “Hotel Universe” or Eugene O’Neill in “The Iceman Cometh,” presents a gallery of misfits who each represent a certain character type. There is a dotty proprietor (William H. Bassett), a wizened caretaker (Patrick Cronin), a homosexual tenant (Danny Roque), a decaying civil servant (John Herzog) and so on.

There is some question whether the grim Irish conflict--or indeed any serious subject--should be treated to the fake barroom blarney so blithely dished out in this Los Angeles Repertory Company production directed by Mogerly Flynn. Worse, Behan spares virtually the entire plot until the second act, saving the first for an endless parade of drinking songs and off-color jokes. No, thanks--we’ll abstain.

* “The Hostage,” Los Angeles Theatre Center, Studio 5C, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends May 14. $18-$25. (213) 485-1681. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.