BWW Reviews: MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE COUCH Brings Laughs At Oyster Mill

It's allegedly set in the present day, but the topics have been current for fifty years. Victor Karleen, a busy Manhattan psychiatrist with posh digs on Park Avenue, is trying to keep up with the Joneses, or at least with his competitor, Dr. Roy Terrigan, by writing a casebook just as Terrigan has. He needs the money - his fiancée, Gabrielle, is an expensive proposition. But his friend, publisher Parker Donnelly, doesn't want to publish another boring casebook - he wants to publish sex. And more sex. And yet more sex. Unfortunately, despite being in a profession that handles everyone's sexual problems, Victor is above writing a potboiler. Or is he?

That's the gist of MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE COUCH by Jack Sharkey, currently onstage at Oyster Mill Playhouse, directed by Greg Merkel. Anthony J. Geraci, an Oyster Mill veteran, brings Victor Karleen to slightly stodgy life as a man who can't keep up with his fiancee's drinking, though he's determined to try, and who can't quite keep up with his enemy, Roy Terrigan - played with a side helping of smarmy sleaze by Tom Beene. (Don't miss Roy's wardrobe. It will tell you everything about him.) Mary McCleary is Gabrielle, his artistic, expensive, and strong-livered fiancée, who manages to move through the story in her own world, slightly oblivious of the facts, until she becomes convinced of Victor cheating on her and takes an even bigger turn with the facts. But that's all right, as Victor is even more oblivious.

Keith Bowerman is outstanding as Parker Donnelly, friend and publisher, who thinks that the written-down sexually explicit dreams of patient Albert Brook are Victor's writing and gives Victor an advance on what Victor thinks is his casebook... and what Parker thinks is his nearly-obscene novel. Charlotte, Victor's nurse, is in league with Parker to fork over her boss's notes - the good ones, that is - for the manuscript, and Marte Engel plays Charlotte with a wickedly gleeful near-menace. The scene in which Patrick and Charlotte read the patient's dreams, thinking they're Victor's writing, is priceless.

The source of the explicit dream texts is Albert Brook, a sexually frustrated boarding house owner. Although his dreams are enough to scorch the ceiling, somehow Victor can never quite get around to looking at their content - at least, not until it's too late. Tom Ford's Albert is dryly funny, a disaster waiting to happen - especially if he finds a girlfriend and stops having frustrated dreams. One of the other best moments in the show is in the first act during Patrick's first session with Victor. Look for the tables to turn on the one asking "so how does that make you feel?" in a moment of total mirth.

Pam Rohrbach is very funny as Dorothea, Albert's grandmother, who's prone to "disease of the month" disease, and Amy Jordan plays a cute Jingle Jablonski, Victor's bouncy neighbor.

Although Sharkey's classic has the sound of a farce, it isn't quite one, and the pace is, through most of the show, slightly slower than might be anticipated. And though the show can be contemporary, there's a decidedly 1970's feel to this production, emphasized by Dr. Roy Terrigan's swinging wardrobe and by Gabrielle's abstract art and mobile hanging from the office ceiling and by a stereo console that doubles as a drinks cabinet.

Despite the topics, there's no untoward language, though plenty of implications when the dreams are being read. It's not unsuitable for teens, though they may not enjoy it as much as a slightly older crowd will.

At Oyster Mill Playhouse through April 6. Call 717-737-6768 or visit www.oystermill.com for tickets.

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