A Nice, Light Summer Comedy

The great American patriarch will never have it so good again. Clarence Day Sr., the gruff protagonist of Lindsay and Crouse's Life With Father, bullies his wife and children with nothing but a blustering charm--this was one classic stage family that managed to escape sinister Freudian entanglements, tragic alcoholic breakdowns, the crippling gaps between aspiration and achievement and other dark intertwinings of soul and psyche. Life With Father is fun.

Based on an autobiographical book by Clarence Day Jr., the play chronicles the domestic mishaps of one Victorian family with a light humor. Clarence Sr. is a bull-headed Wall Street man who presides over his well-trained household with an almost military authority. His insensitive tirades send everyone from his wife to a motley procession of household servants into teary blubbering. His penny-conscious "thrift" two sons into the less-than-respectable patent medicine business. Too proud to even kneel in church, he taxes the patience of the most accommodating clergyman.

As would be expected, underneath the icy exterior Mr. Day is all honeyed sentimentality. His unsuccessful struggles to maintain appearances while wife and children expertly plot to get just what they want are the bases of humor here. There is no strong plot line; rather the play is a series of interlocking episodes that for the contemporary audience will bear a strong resemblance to situation comedies.

George Hamlin has directed the Loeb's repertory company with a nice quick wit. Fast pacing coupled with the cast's flawless timing compensates nicely for what usually seems like too long a play. Wellchoreographed movement and extensive use of a back foyer and staircases give the production a visual variety not often found in a one-room set.

The brightest moments of this highly-polished east are the scenes between Mr. Day (George Hamlin) and his wife Vinnie (Joanne Hamlin.) The little gestures--Clarence nervously moving his shoulders, Vinnie fluttering her hands with vulnerable grace--are the true vocabulary of this marriage. Their solo scenes revolving around Vinnie's inability to balance a checkbook and her husband's insistence on the male perogative will charm all but the most doctrinaire feminist.

Warren Motley plays the love-beleagured Clarence, Jr. with a suitable adolescent hunch; particularly good are his scenes opposite the spunky but innocent Mary Skinner (Cindy Rosenthal). His younger brothers John (Scott Maitland) and Whitney (William Price Schwalbe) are also fine, though they tend at times to resort to predictable grimacing and posturing. Little Harlan (Jeffrey Manwaring) is a delightful seven-year-old--quietly cute with a minimum of the necessary saccharine. The rest of the supporting cast are fine character types, though the maids might do well by talking some of the squeal out of their crying scenes.

Donald Soule designed the plush Victorian brocade-and-high-ceilinged set in addition to the lighting. Escpecially nice are the proscenium of painted mauve curtains and the warm morning light during the breakfast scenes, which balances the ponderous family portraits and patterned wallpaper. Elaborate period costumes are by Marcia Dixcy Carr.

This well-crafted play affords the best of the standard summer stock fare--a nice, light evening with an old American favorite, what is currently classified as "family entertainment." The Loeb production, with warm wit and the impeccable Hamlin duo, provides a welcome break from the self-conscious intellect usually found in this theatre.