Theater review: 'Allergist's Wife' is smart, funny on Palo Alto stage Theater review: 'Allergist's Wife' is smart, funny on Palo Alto stage (June 29, 2005)

By Bryan Wiggin

Almanac Theater Critic

"The Tale of the Allergist's Wife," by Charles Busch, is being given an irresistibly enjoyable production by Palo Alto Players. It is funny, smart, clever, and wonderfully well-acted.

Marjorie Taub languishes in her Upper West Side apartment. The recent death of her therapist has left her in a malaise of middle-age angst. With two daughters grown and gone, and a husband, Ira, who's a successful and popular allergist, Marjorie's life is a failure of unfulfilled ambitions and empty intellectual pretensions.

Her mother, Frieda, is obsessed with her bowel functions, and tends to bring them up over dinner.

But Marjorie's schlepping and kvetching are interrupted when a chic, beautiful woman, mistakenly thinking the Taub apartment is for rent, turns out to be Lillian Greenblat, Marjorie's dearest chum of 40 years ago.

Now calling herself Lee Green, she has been everywhere, seen everything, and known everyone -- such as the Nixons ("I was the first one Pat called after the resignation"); Henry Kissinger and Princess Diana (seated between them at dinner, she mentioned land mines and "planted a seed"); and Andy Warhol (he noticed how she stacked up Campbell soup cans).

Now she works as a fundraiser of an international aid organization. But her good works extend to loosening up the Taubs. Her flirting with both of them culminates in a very funny scene of all three clumped passionately together on the sofa, and thence into the passionate, swirling waters of the hot tub.

The next morning, the Taubs are somewhat chagrined at themselves, but they are alarmed when their Iraqi doorman, Mohammed, informs them that Lee's organization supports international terrorism. When they confront her with this, Lee declares that what really terrifies them is the emptiness of their lives, with Ira admiring himself as a famously good-hearted doctor, and Marjorie being nothing but an intellectual manque. She then departs for Monaco ("I promised Grace I'd look after the kids").

This play is funny -- cleverly funny -- throughout, with only the last five minutes or so flattening out into almost nothing.

Wendy Howard-Benham is absolutely marvelous -- no hyperbole here -- as Marjorie. She gives life and character to every word and gesture, with all the points on her emotional spectrum perfectly in place. It's a treat.

The others are less spectacular, but no less good. As Ira, Leo Lawhorn is genuinely warm-hearted as he accepts his success and the praises of his admirers. Mary Moore is sleek, chic, sexy, cool, and poised as Lee, and not without depth. She could seduce anyone. (I thought of waiting at the stage door.)

Jane Seaman modulates the character of Frieda, always squeezing humor out of her bodily functions. And Nizar Ahmed brings warmth to the smaller role of Mohammed.

Director Jeanie K. Forte has her cast in splendid form, with timing that deftly waits for a laugh to finish or moves on when the laughter isn't there. But most of the time it is, thanks to the acting Ms. Forte has drawn from her cast and the smoothly functioning ensemble she has made of them. Excellent work.
INFORMATION

"The Tale of the Allergist's Wife," by Charles Busch, is being presented by Palo Alto Players at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto through July 3. For information, call 329-0891.

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