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May 22--The spinsterish British eccentric is a tricky breed. Characters such as Peter Shaffer's Lettice Douffet, the romantic, fiction-loving historical tour guide at the heart of Peter Shaffer's "Lettice and Lovage," may act as if they're just short of certifiable, but, in fact, they deviate only slightly from the general populace.
And thus the key to playing them on a stage is not to treat them as if they are London versions of Medea stuck in a comedy -- as actress Patricia Hodges sometimes does in the Court Theatre's mediocre current revival of Shaffer's 1987 play -- but to constantly remind us that we've met them before. In actual life.
Hodges, a formidably powerful actress at the core of a very talented but underused Court Theatre cast, has the tough task of playing a role famously performed in London and New York by that mistress of nuance Maggie Smith, who can make an upturned eyebrow scream like a symphony orchestra. More challenging yet, "Lettice and Lovage" is (in this slow-paced version, at least) a comedy with a running time of about 3 hours. If you're not thoroughly entranced by the titular characters, then Shaffer's initially clever and adroit comic stylings run out of steam directly after the second intermission, when events take a thoroughly preposterous turn.
That's the case here. Shaffer, a member of what you might call the non-ideological branch of British playwriting, fashioned an entire three-act play on the premise that a colorful, theatrically inclined tour guide (Lettice) stuck in the most boring historical house in England starts making up colorful but entirely fictional tales of historical machination to liven up her tours and feed her tip jar. The stories bring her the attentions of her battle-gray-dull boss from the preservation trust, (Lotte Schoen, played in more straightforward fashion by Linda Reiter), who first fires her and then feels guilty about it. A strange friendship -- a mutual escape from both women's incompatibility with prosaic modern life -- develops from there.
Shaffer scholars have noted that the writer of "Equus" and "Amadeus" has an ongoing obsession with the conflict between hot, impractical passion and cool but tedious reason, and that his plays typically feature a representative of both camps. And although this is a comedy bordering at times on classic farce, passion and reason surface here. A smart but commercial writer, Shaffer has an agenda well beyond the silly, and there are sufficient bon mots to feel like this is a carefully observed work of some substance.
"Language frees one," notes Lettice at one point, getting to the heart of the play. "And history gives one place."
In those areas, Lucy Smith Conroy's literate production is solid, if a tad too serious. But overall, it's nowhere near as funny as this script should be. Some of the show is overpushed and indulgent, as if the director were reluctant to dial anything back or speed anything up. And the physical comedy, which needs a much surer directorial hand to work, simply lacks the precise choreography required for top-drawer farce. The limited physical environment here does the job but offers few interesting or exceptional diversions.
The inestimably capable Hodges has half of her character -- the guttural, theatrical-obsessive part -- down cold. But the requisite quirky wit rooted in pain and repression? That's not so clear. Reiter takes the haughty stiffness too far early on but relaxes into a more honest performance. And there's a very amusing third-act turn from the terrific -- and truthful -- John Judd, who plays a solicitor whose job is primarily to advance the plot.
"Lettice and Lovage" likely will please those for whom Court has been too outre this season (the show got a very warm reception from its opening-night audience). And it doubtless will settle and gain some zip as the run progresses. But without some retooling, this is standard repertory fare concluding a season that has plumbed greater depths.
"Lettice and Lovage"
When: Through June 11
Where: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave.
Running time: 3 Hours
Tickets: 773-753-4472
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