Even after 25 years, the opening scene of Christopher Durang’s surreal comedy “Beyond Therapy” remains one of the funniest sustained bits of banter you will ever see on a stage.
The scene, in which a freakish couple meet at a restaurant on an arranged first date, is so impeccably realized by Elgin Kelley and Kevin Hart in a new staging at the Avenue Theater, it’s almost incidental that the rest of the play can’t possibly live up to its great start.
Hilarious is the most overused word in theater. This scene, which climaxes with Prudence and Bruce tossing water in each other’s faces, is hilarious. It probably helps to know Prudence is an aging priss who can’t accept imperfection or weakness, while Bruce is a casual bisexual who cries on a dime and lives with a lover named Bob (Josh Hartwell). Bruce is just a guy who wants to be a dad – and have his guy on the side, too.
That Prudence and Bruce wind up together is a foregone conclusion. The fun along the way is meeting their two hysterically incompetent therapists, who are far more afield of mental stability than their patients.
James Nantz plays desperate doc Stuart, who slept with Prudence on her second session (an act so quick it was, to her, akin to a push-up), and is now consumed with jealousy and low self-esteem.
Funnywoman LuAnn Buckstein plays Bruce’s shrink, Charlotte, whose synapses misfire as often as Stuart’s libido. She also barks when she gets excited, talks to a stuffed dog and, when she gets really uninhibited, rolls around on the floor.
Kelley won last year’s Denver Post Ovation Award for best year by an actress for tackling an 1890s Irish widow, Shakespeare’s doomed Desdemona and a mongoose in a kids show, so it should come as no surprise to see her also master surreal, all-in-the-timing relationship comedy as well. Her only misstep is an affected walk that seems contrived.
Hart, last seen as a sinewy, sinister Pozzo in the Bug’s “Waiting for Godot,” is as comfortable as he can be in Bruce’s skin. And why not? He occupied it once before – in the production that launched the Avenue Theater 19 years ago.
It’s fun to recall that when “Therapy” debuted in New York, the lead couple was played by Stephen Collins (“7th Heaven”) and Sigourney Weaver. By the time it hit Broadway, it was John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest, with an unknown David Hyde Pierce as the late-arriving waiter.
This kind of show is director Robert Wells’ bread and butter. He has aces in his leads and up his sleeves. Buckstein and Nantz have plenty of great moments, but they are also holding back a bit. They have even more comic gold to mine before this run ends in June.
Wells also sets the perfect mood with rare scene-changing music recorded decades ago by Jo Stafford and her husband Paul Weston (under the name Jonathan and Darlene Edwards). Their slightly, intentionally off-key parodies include “Beginning to See the Light.”
In retrospect, there is something sweetly innocent and yet darkly prophetic about Durang’s comic look at the New York singles life, coming as it does in the naive predawn of AIDS. Though it’s profane, it’s just a sweet and funny tale reminding us of the need to stay emotionally open to love.
“Beyond Therapy” | *** RATING
COMEDY|The Avenue Theater, 417 E. 17th Ave.|Written by Christopher Durang|Starring Elgin Kelley, Kevin Hart, Josh Hartwell and LuAnn Buckstein.|THROUGH JUNE 10|7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. some Sundays|1 hour, 45 minutes| $20|303-321-5925 or avenuetheater.com|Warning: Profanity and crude sexual humor.
