Hotel Universe

Lyric Productions' choice of Hotel Universe as its final effort of a hopeful first season is unfortunate. Unless Philip Barrie's wisps of philosophy are staged either with a sense of humor or with a sense of dedicated oddness, they can drag tediously. Since the director and cast seem dreadfully sober as they face the first hour or so, the current production remains dead until the bright second half of its long only act.

The playwright himself is partly responsible, for his characters droop around a not-quite-real terrace in Southern France far too long before they begin to explain and find themselves by re-living scenes from their lives. Barrie does handle these reenactments, however, with intriguing mergings of the real and dream world--a girl friend becomes a mother in one re-experience, men become boys in another. Such projections out of reality are made into stimulating, fresh moments by the acting.

Gaudentius Lee and Georgia Boyko, as one of the three central couples, amaze the audience by their sudden excellence when they drift into scenes from the past. Two other young duets are rather tiring, except that Ruth Nason, as the lethargic but lovely adornment of a banker's bed, is the only member of the cast who seems really to be having a good time. Her acting is exaggerated, but happy. As the inevitable French butler, Earl Edgerton is dull, but in the role of a half-mad old man, David Roberts gives the finest performance of the evening. He is imaginative, witty and relaxed. In contrast, Lucia French, playing a disillusioned actress, seems embarrassed and tense.

The play as a whole, however, is not so tense; in fact, it verges on tedium. Although Lyric makes a good effort, sadly, their results are not yet up to their ambitions.