In the Moonlight Eddie

By GREG EVANS

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In the Moonlight Eddie (Pasadena Playhouse; 680 seats; $ 35.50 top)
 
Cast: Bill Macy (Max Bennett), Robert Forster (Gil Landau), Ann Wedgeworth (Abby Norman), Joan Pringle (Henna Burns), Anthony Lucero (Eddie Landau), Spencer Garrett (Bartender). Jack LoGiudice's "In the Moonlight Eddie" evokes its era -- the pre-psychedelic 1960s -- as much in style as subject. An old-fashioned boulevard comedy with a generation gap down its middle (think "Butterflies Are Free"), "Eddie" has enough laughs to help audiences snicker past the pat storyline and pedestrian staging.
 

Performers as likable as they are polished also help the Pasadena Playhouse production skate over the play's thin ice. Any future productions would be well advised to land vets like Ann Wedgeworth and Bill Macy to take full advantage of the play's jokey, sitcom rhythms.

TX: TX:A Pasadena Playhouse and State Theater of California presentation of a play in two acts by Jack LoGiudice. Directed by Ken Howard. TX:Set in 1966 New York, play stars Robert Forster as Gil Landau, a has-been Broadway playwright whose last chance at career rejuvenation is opening on the Deuce as "Eddie" begins. Gil and his agent Max Bennett (Macy) pass a nervous opening night in a Times Square bar, their exposition setting up not only the make-or-break pro stakes, but Gil's strained relationship with his 27-year-old son Eddie (Anthony Lucero). Eddie is recuperating from a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt, and Gil is walking on eggshells.

TX:Joining Gil and Max for an opening night celebration is Abby Norman (Wedgeworth), the aging sexpot actress whose career could use a lift of its own.

Enter Eddie, a nervous, awkward type whose blunt denunciations of theater-world pretense put a damper on the festivities. And Eddie has a secret that will have an even greater effect on the evening: He wrote the play that the company is celebrating. This far-fetched plot device -- Gil knows only that he stole the play from someone -- is the crisis that exposes the father-son rift.

Director Ken Howard focuses more on the dialogue's comic delivery than on moving the actors. Despite Gary Wissmann's versatile set, "Eddie" is stagnant. This is Neil Simon without the edge, and that's saying something.

Macy and Wedgeworth get the laughs with their fine handling of the play's one-liners, and Forster is OK as the tough-guy playwright.

Sets, Gary Wissmann; lighting, Kevin Mahan; costumes, Zoe DuFour; sound, Jon Gottlieb; casting, Carol Lefko; production stage manager, Elsbeth M. Collings; stage manager, Andrea Iovino. Opened, reviewed May 19, 1996, at the Pasadena Playhouse. Runs through June 23. Running time: 1 hour, 50 min.