TOM TITUS -- Theater Review

Local audiences have become quite familiar with the plays of Richard

Greenberg thanks to South Coast Repertory, where no fewer than five of

them were born. One that SCR missed, however, was “Eastern Standard,”

which currently is being staged by the Orange Coast College Repertory

Theater.

One of Greenberg’s earlier works, “Eastern Standard” lacks the

maturity and focus of more-developed plays like “Three Days of Rain” and

“Everett Beekin.” Yet it reflects both the playwright’s comparative youth

and the late 1980s time period in which it was created quite

convincingly.

Greenberg assembles a disparate cast of characters in his study of

relationships -- one heterosexual, one homosexual -- which form the core

of this piece. To preclude the show from becoming over-yuppified and

tiresome, he added a couple of pinches of spice in the form of an

ebullient waitress and an obnoxious bag lady, then shifted the scene from

a Manhattan restaurant to a seashore cottage.

The result, thoughtfully staged by OCC students Sean Gray and Raine

Hambly, is a character-driven comedy with dark overtones that may

aggravate, but always amuses and entertains. It’s a demanding assignment

that is generally quite well developed.

The restaurant scenes, which lay the groundwork for the primary

relationships, introduce the characters to the audience and, by

extension, to each other. Stephen (Mark Hunt) and Drew (James Grant) are

lunch buddies -- the former keeping one eye on Phoebe (Malia Fee) at the

next table, the latter eyeing her brother Peter (Chris Fowler).

Stirring the plot as fringe characters, who figure prominently in the

story to follow, are the waitress (Daunielle Hauser) and the disagreeable

street person (Anne Gray) who repeatedly disrupts the social atmosphere.

It is through their intervention that Stephen meets Phoebe and Drew

begins pursuing Peter -- who is dying of AIDS but chooses to tell no one

but his sister, keeping a frustrated Drew at bay.

Fowler’s afflicted Peter is the most fully developed performance of

the company, along with Hauser’s effervescent Ellen. These two, in vastly

contrasting moods, keep the show’s motor continually revved up and offer

the most affecting performances, one on a more cerebral level, the other

a vapid free spirit.

Hunt and Fee conduct their romance on a tentative basis, he bemoaning

his professional ineffectiveness and she fretting over a dumped,

unbalanced ex-lover. They are center court in this game of the heart, but

Greenberg’s dialogue leaves them groping for their own centers.

Grant renders a flashy, demonstrative artist, transformed to jelly by

the reluctant Fowler and taking his frustration out on the others,

notably Gray’s denizen of the sidewalks whom the idealistic Ellen invites

to the summer house. Gray is the sow’s ear remarkably transformed into a

silk purse by the well-to-do romantics, and she conveys her make-over

impressively, like Eliza at the ball in “My Fair Lady.”

“Eastern Standard” may dip into the ludicrous from time to time, but

Greenberg’s biting script and the OCC cast’s earnest deployment keep the

vessel afloat and on course. At the very least, the show will lessen the

magnitude of your own problems.

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

appear Thursdays and Saturdays.

FYI

WHAT: “Eastern Standard”

WHERE: Orange Coast College Studio Theater, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa

Mesa

WHEN: Closing performances 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m.

Sunday

COST: $5 and $6

PHONE: (714) 432-5640, Ext. 1