A robust revival of a classic comedy

Some 70 years have passed since George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart won the Pulitzer Prize for their Depression-era comedy “You Can’t Take It With You” and created a “must do” project for virtually every community theater in the country.

Its appeal is understandable: a sizable cast populated with juicy character roles, highlighted by the toppling of the Type A personality and the triumph of the more laid-back attitude in all of us. It’s as comfortable as the proverbial old shoe, yet in the right hands it never ceases to be infectiously funny.

There are a number of “right hands” at the Huntington Beach Playhouse, the primary ones belonging to director Avis Ruewleler, who has fashioned a robust and vibrant production out of this exceedingly familiar exercise. The old adage that “there are no small parts,” etc., certainly applies to this appealing revival.

For those few playgoers unfamiliar with the story, it unfolds at the home of “Grandpa” Martin Vanderhof and his extended family of eccentrics, circa 1936. Grandpa lives a life of quiet, fulfilling inactivity, having retired on a whim at the prime of his business life some three decades before and never looked back.

He’s the patriarch of three generations and a few hangers-on who populate the New York dwelling in which snakes, ballet dancers, amateur playwrights and the occasional tipsy actress find themselves right at home. But the outside world threatens encroachment when his granddaughter falls for the son of her Wall Street employer, setting up a hilarious confrontation of opposing lifestyles.

Rick Hardgrove fits perfectly into the role of Grandpa, dispensing thoughtful pearls of wisdom and neutralizing tyrannical tycoons. It’s his second Kaufman-Hart central character in the space of a few months, following his title role in “The Man Who Came to Dinner” in Irvine, and Hardgrove handles it expertly.

Leslie Joyce beautifully interprets his somewhat ditzy daughter, Penelope, who writes plays because someone left a typewriter on her doorstep eight years before. Jim Thomas enacts her fireworks-creating husband Paul with much of Grandpa’s sage calmness and his own childlike wisdom.

The role of Alice, their lovestruck daughter, is taken over the top, quite delightfully, by Kelly Yarborough, who projects both the romantic and heartbroken aspects of her character with a fine flourish. Matthew Dougherty hits a lower key as her level-headed swain, anxious to trade his corporate world for her more improvisational existence.

Melissa Liu sparkles as the other daughter, Essie, who spends her stage time in one ballet position or another. Her xylophone-tapping husband, Ed, is done more tentatively by Agustin Alvarez, whose accent often overshadows his character.

The servants are a particular delight. Karly Pierre is a richly interpreted kitchen maid, while James James rattles the setting as her outspoken boyfriend, Donald. Carl Wawrina functions quietly as Thomas’ assistant, a delivery man who just “stayed” with the family.

Into this already eclectic atmosphere come some vibrant visitors, chief among them being Jonathan Motil, most commanding as the passionate ballet instructor Kolenkov (Motil also doubles as the uptight IRS agent early in the proceedings). Mary Hall reprises an earlier role as a tipsy actress with a freewheeling flourish, and Jenny Lanning is a regal delight as the transplanted Russian grand duchess who fits in most comfortably with the “commoners.”

Finally, we meet Dougherty’s upper-class parents, deftly portrayed by Robert Purcell and Valerie Speaks. Purcell has the look and approach of a filthy rich banker straight out of a New Yorker cartoon, while Speaks renders a frosty, most uncomfortable spouse. Their encounter with the improvisational Vanderhof-Sycamore household is the high comic point of the production.

“How can you relax in times like these?” the excitable Kolenkov asks at one point in the play, to which Grandpa replies, “If more people would relax, there wouldn’t be times like these.” It’s a 70-year-old message we could do worse than take to heart today.

“You Can’t Take It With You” may be as familiar as a rerun of “Gilligan’s Island,” yet it remains one of the theater’s pure comedy constants, an old favorite lovingly reproduced by the Huntington Beach Playhouse.