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Tim Weltz, Christine Macomber and Eric Burke star in the Ross Valley Players?Äô production of A.R. Gurney?Äôs comedy ?ÄúThe Cocktail Hour.” Photo by Ron Severdia

Before the late sixties, the cocktail hour was a standard function for most financially successful, yet dysfunctional, “wasp” families. It basically served as a time for families to engage in comfortable, trivial conversation. In his play, “The Cocktail Hour,” A.R. Gurney suggests such functions had sugar-coated gloomier aspects of family secrets. Families had slid into comfortable solace in their best pearls, Brookes Brothers clothes, and martinis. The script pungently implies autobiographical revelation. This heightens the humor and suspense in Gurney’s provocative comedy.

The cast in the Ross Valley Player’s current production of “The Cocktail Hour,” superbly accentuates the humor, wit, and personalities of their roles. Each performer marks perfect rhythm for each character. They illicit their inner longings as well. The play takes place in the early seventies in upstate New York. The first scene introduces John, the oldest son and playwright, and Bradley, the retired businessman and father. John personifies the middle aged intellectual grasping for truth. Bradley represents the older generation as he grasps at conventions. Both actors show distant formality in the father/son relationship. T. Louis Weltz as Bradley, tends to perform with likability and realistic facial expressions. He is an enjoyable mature actor to watch. In the main role John, actor Eric Burke, transitions stealthily from scene to scene.

The main character John, brings the topic of his upcoming play, “The Cocktail Hour.” The family objects to its allusion to his own family. The touchy subject disrupts the coziness of the cocktail hour of the real play. The mother Ann, composes herself so majestically, yet at moments she demonstrates her allusions to a strong sexuall past. Actress Christine Macomber performs the matriarch role with perfect timing and regal confidence. She strikes qualities that we all recognize in our mothers. With the delivery of her dead pan lines, the audience laughs at her all-too-familiar expressions.

John’s younger sister Nina declares that she is confined in John’s play as a minor role. In the real play, actress Beth Deitchman makes Nina a major force. Her delivery demonstrates Nina’s feisty temper and sense of entitlement. Like Macomber, Deitchman has great sense of comic timing. She also brings integrity to her role.

In the play, John tells his father Bradley that he doesn’t mean to attack his family. Likewise, Gurney does not hammer on his characters, but treats them with compassion and humor. Director Mary Ann Rogers handles the pace of the production well. She uses the space fittingly to detail climax of the play. Rogers treats the play and its subject with warmth.

Set designer Bruce Lackovic invites the audience into the traditional home of an upstate New York “wasp” family. Yet he reserves the dramatic humor for the family bar. Resembling a hip martini lounge, the walls are decorated with lime green bubbles. The bar represents more modernity than tradition, perhaps alluding to the fading tradition of the private cocktail hour at home.

If you long for an engaging and entertaining night, forgo the bourbon and schnapps. Instead, head for something with dry humor and a lively twist, “The Cocktail Hour.”

Ross Valley Players
415-456-9555
www.rossvalleyplayers.com
January 11?ÄîFebruary 17, 2008
Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm (Jan. 27, Feb. 3, 10, 17), Thursdays at 7:30pm (Jan. 24, 31, Feb 7, 14)
General admission: $20
Senior citizens (62+): $17
Youth: (18 and under): $17
Thursday shows are $16 for everyone (no additional discounts apply)
“Pay What You Will” on 1/18

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