TOM TITUS -- Theater Review

It’s always pleasant, when viewing a play, to be in on the inside

jokes -- and at South Coast Repertory, the jokes are not only inside,

they’re right down the street.

With “Everett Beekin,” his fifth world premiere at SCR, playwright

Richard Greenberg takes some comic potshots not only at his New York

Jewish heritage, but at Costa Mesa and Orange County circa 2000. It’s a

play that will work equally well, for different reasons, on both the left

and right coasts.

Greenberg’s first act is set on Manhattan’s Lower East Side just after

World War II, and the Yiddish is thick enough to be cut with a knife. The

descendants of some of these characters occupy the second act -- played

by the same actors -- and the local satire is equally chunky, directed

with wit and insight by Evan Yiopoulis.

Part I, subtitled “The Shabbas Goy” for a gentile invited to Jewish

homes on the Sabbath to perform tasks forbidden to his hosts, generally

consists of two sisters at a kitchen table kaffeklatch dissecting their

friends, husbands and -- when she’s out of the room -- their old-country

mother. The non-Jewish suitor of their ailing sister negotiates an ocean

of hostility in his quest to marry his beloved and move her to

California.

Though they never make it, that some of the family goes bi-coastal is

evident in the second act, “The Pacific,” as present-day family members

entertain a sour relative from New York whose views of California are

slightly to the left of Woody Allen’s. This is where Greenberg’s

delicious satire seeps in, opening with a prim society lady’s guided tour

of the bridge connecting the SCR complex with South Coast Plaza.

That visitor -- a welcome return by Kandis Chappell, one of SCR’s more

accomplished and most sorely missed actresses -- proceeds to dissect West

Coast culture with an acidic tongue. In one of her most stinging

diatribes, she envisions “a Crime Walk at Disneyland where visitors can

share in a true urban experience.”

Chappell and Nike Doukas (the aforementioned guide) also are the

sharp-tongued sisters of the first act, who handle the Old World dialogue

with equal ease. Doukas’ interpretation of the social butterfly in Act II

is also right on target.

The formidable mother of Act I, who would barricade the door against

the Gentile visitor if she could, is delivered with bitter comic sourness

by Carole Goldman, who takes an almost mute cameo in Act II.

Adam Scott shifts gears from the poised, ingratiating, ambitious

suitor Jimmy in Act I to the vacuous, clueless Ev in the second act, at a

loss when his bride takes a powder on their wedding day. An extended

sequence involving cultural opposites Chappell and Scott is a superior

piece of character delineation.

Tessa Auberjonis, a virtual no-show as the sickly Miri in Act I,

impresses as the bewildered bride-to-be in the second act, making a

necessary connection with the past to better define her future.

Jeff Allen does much with little actual dialogue both as Chappell’s

doltish husband in New York and Scott’s more sophisticated but equally

reticent father in California.

Scenic designer Chris Barreca has an opportunity to work with

traditional and modern settings in the same play, creating a stuffy New

York apartment in Act I and the smoothly alternating modernistic settings

that define the second act.

True, the structure of “Everett Beekin” is gimmicky, but Greenberg

provides some delicious insights into his characters in both past and

present elements, serving up sweet substance with his juicy satire. The

title character would take several paragraphs to fully explain; suffice

to say his personage is pivotal to both segments.

A “Goy’s Guide to Yiddish” is provided in the program for the benefit

of those unfamiliar with the genre, but the concept is not that difficult

to grasp. Seldom has a play so basically conversational delivered such

pure hilarity.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Thursdays and Saturdays.

FYI

WHAT: “Everett Beekin”

WHERE: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

WHEN: Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 8 p.m.

and Sundays at 2:30 and 7:45 p.m until Oct. 8.

COST: $28-$49

CALL: (714) 708-5555