A Meltdown at Middle Age

Valerie Harper’s eyes roll. Her eyebrows rise. She flings her hands toward the ceiling. This is not the time or the place for subtlety.

This is the Ahmanson Theatre stage, and Harper is playing Marjorie in Charles Busch’s “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife.”

Busch describes Marjorie in his stage directions: “She’s in the throes of an epic depression. It’s not quiet depression but raging frustration. She’s a volcano that explodes, simmers down and then explodes again.”

Did we mention that this play is primarily a comedy?

Yes, Busch believes that volatile Marjorie, her more-altruistic-than-thou husband, Ira (Tony Roberts) and her brutally candid little mother, Frieda (Shirl Bernheim) are hilarious. For much of the evening, he’s right.

The play has a go-for-the-joke ethos that stops short of brilliant revelations. Obsessive and neurotic New York Jews are not unfamiliar targets of satire. Busch’s subject matter doesn’t venture beyond Woody Allen territory.

But Busch’s theatricalization of this turf generates a comic energy that has been found wanting in some of Allen’s recent work. Busch was previously known primarily for starring in drag in his own campy parodies of genre movies. No one is in drag here, but elements of that quasi-operatic performance style remain.

Which is probably a good thing for Ahmanson audiences in particular. Even in its minimum 1,600-seat capacity, the Ahmanson would seem too big for a five-character comedy set in a living room. I can’t vouch for the experience from the seats in the back. But by the standards of small comedies, the scale of the performances inflates “Allergist’s Wife” into a bigger show than you might imagine.

If the specter of a TV-scaled sitcom hovers around the edges of “Allergist’s Wife,” Busch also tries to ward it off with an element of unresolved mystery. He introduces Lee (Michele Lee), a childhood friend of the title character. She temporarily transforms Marjorie’s life. Busch diligently restrains himself from spilling the beans on what Lee’s all about--something that most sitcom writers might feel compelled to do. He even converts the enigma of Lee into something to be mocked, referring to her as a “Rasputin,” a “golem,” a “sphinx.”

Busch has acknowledged that he was, in part, inspired by Harold Pinter’s “Old Times,” in which a mysterious interloper unsettles a long-standing marriage. It’s almost as if he has skewered “Old Times” in the same way that he mocked beach movies in “Psycho Beach Party.” But with a setting so familiar to connoisseurs of American comedy (and without the drag elements, which take his work much deeper into artifice), it’s possible to enjoy “Allergist’s Wife” without ever having seen “Old Times”--or “Psycho Beach Party.”

Marjorie has found her life increasingly meaningless. She tried volunteering for charity. She tells a story--distressing to her, funny to us--about an unpleasant experience in that arena. Too bad that Busch implausibly has her tell this story to her husband and mother, who have probably heard every detail several times but betray no impatience with yet another telling, rather than to her new and eager friend Lee.

Lately, Marjorie has been filling the empty spaces with heavy-duty cultural offerings. But they haven’t been able to soften the blow of her therapist’s death. They haven’t prevented her from entering a Disney store and impulsively breaking a few figurines.

Enter Lee. Since their paths parted as children, Lee has apparently gone on to a life that’s as stimulating as Marjorie’s is deadening. Although she never found true love, Lee has been everywhere, done everything, met just about every famous person of the last four decades. And she appears truly interested in Marjorie.

As the stylishly outfitted Lee, Michele Lee is a strikingly glossy middle-aged emblem. She could be a cover subject for the new baby boomer magazine, My Generation. Although we soon suspect that Lee isn’t everything she’s cracked up to be, the cracks aren’t obvious to Marjorie, who’s desperate for anything that might ameliorate her own sense of perdu.

Marjorie’s husband and mother are more dubious about the newcomer. But Roberts’ Ira oozes such self-satisfaction over his own heroic service on behalf of the downtrodden (he retired from private practice and opened a free clinic) that he soon finds himself succumbing to Lee’s seductions as well. Frieda, who’s perpetually squabbling with her daughter--and discussing her bowel movements in graphic detail--takes longer to come around, but she too has a weak spot for Lee’s sheen.

Busch’s characters speak with a touch of pretentiousness that adds to the comedy. Even blunt old Frieda gets a big laugh by suddenly using the word “agog,” delivered beautifully by Bernheim. Roberts gets his biggest laugh when, near the end, he is suddenly overcome with such rage that he forgets to couch his words in their usual high-toned veneer.

Still, under the brisk direction of Lynne Meadow, it’s Harper who displays the starkest contrast between fierce manifestations of violent emotion--some would say it’s mugging, but that’s OK in these circumstances--and her highfalutin intellectual aspirations. Busch’s final scene is too ambiguous, but it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that Marjorie’s next visit to the Disney store goes no better than the first.

“The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife,” Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m.; Sundays through July 21, 7:30 p.m.; Thursdays, July 25-Aug. 8, 2 p.m. Ends Aug. 11. $20-$60. (213) 628-2772. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Valerie Harper...Marjorie

Tony Roberts...Ira

Michele Lee...Lee

Shirl Bernheim...Frieda

Anil Kumar...Mohammed

Written by Charles Busch. Directed by Lynne Meadow. Set by Santo Loquasto. Costumes by Ann Roth. Lighting by Christopher Akerlind. Sound by Bruce Ellman and Brian Ronan. Production stage manager Robert Witherow.