PLAY REVIEW 'Luv' revival remains dead with miscasting

The director has the seasoned performers overacting their boorish roles.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
& quot;Luv, & quot; the new production at the Oakland Center for the Arts, has nothing particularly illuminating to say about men and women, marriage, friendship, intimacy, sex or love.
A badly dated 1960s farce whose neurotic, off-putting characters and New York setting make it seem like an early, laugh-deficient draft of a second-tier Neil Simon comedy, this & quot;Luv & quot; has the further disadvantage of being egregiously miscast. The result is a very long night for community theater buffs searching for a little preholiday cheer.
Two hours spent in the company of three supremely grating, self-pitying and delusional losers like Harry (Tom O'Donnell), Milt (Terry Shears) and Ellen (Ellen Licitra) is two hours of your life wasted. You'd be better off hunting the video store for an old VHS copy of Simon's & quot;Barefoot in the Park & quot; or & quot;The Odd Couple. & quot;
They might be creaky, mothball-encrusted affairs, but at least Simon knew how to write funny dialogue and endearing roles for his actors.
How could anyone involved with this calamitous & quot;Luv & quot; have thought that Murray Schisgal's play needed to be revived in the first place? Didn't they read the script? Though & quot;Luv & quot; might have seemed saucy and sophisticated to Broadway audiences when it premiered back in the mid-'60s, Schisgal's barely concealed misogyny feels downright churlish today.
Ellen, the sole female character, ricochets between two undeserving, infantile men (crass, fast-talking businessman Milt and emotional basket case Harry) with little regard for her own happiness or personal well-being. You want to take the poor wretch aside and give her a copy of Betty Friedan's & quot;The Feminine Mystique. & quot;
Here's the story
The action spins on a chance encounter between old college pals Harry and Milt. Sadsack Harry is about ready to end his miserable life once and for all by jumping off a bridge. The adulterous, unhappily married Milt somehow persuades Harry to delay his suicide and help him out of a jam. Milt thinks that by setting Harry up with his wife (the unsuspecting Ellen), she'll finally agree to a divorce, freeing him to marry his mistress.
Everything goes according to Milt's devious plan. It's love at first sight between mopey, dopey Harry and & quot;woman-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown & quot; Ellen. Milt gets his divorce and a chance at a new life with wife No. 2. But & quot;Luv & quot; doesn't have a fairy tale ending. Ellen becomes more of a caretaker than a wife or lover to the unstable (and possibly psychotic) Harry, and Milt learns that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Deciding that he's made a huge mistake, Milt hatches a new scheme to reclaim Ellen as his prized possession by persuading the hapless Harry to make that leap off the bridge.
Yes, the play is every bit as cynical, witless and, yes, depressing as that cursory plot synopsis makes it sound.
Bad directing
Not helping matters is Terri Wilkes' clunky direction and a supremely unprepossessing set. Wilkes encourages her three seasoned performers to overact, which makes their unappealing characters even more boorish. And Wilkes' attempts at frenetic physical comedy come across as embarrassingly flat-footed under the circumstances.
(Note to Wilkes: If you're staging a play with only three speaking parts, it's necessary to cast actors that the audience will enjoy spending time with. That's clearly not the case here.)
Simply put, there's not a whole lot of love to go around in & quot;Luv. & quot;
X & quot;Luv & quot; is playing weekends through Dec. 2 at the Oakland Center for the Arts. For tickets and additional information, call (330) 746-0404.