MIXED EMOTIONS
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This Equity production, which was created by a team of theater veterans, would have no trouble being licensed in my friend’s theater utopia. After all, the production team had money and clout enough to attract a Name, the once-famous I’ve Got a Secret panelist Betsy Palmer, and to win the presence at their opening of both Roy Leonard and Norman Mark. But the play itself is so bland and predictable that it’s hardly worth the time spent watching it.
Part of the problem is that writer Richard Baer can find nothing particularly new or interesting to say, though his premise–a 65-year-old widower woos the 61-year-old widowed wife of his best friend–is rich in possibilities, and his main characters belong to the liveliest, healthiest, most independent, and loneliest generation of senior citizens this country has ever seen.
I hope my friend sees Mixed Emotions. Maybe he’d be persuaded that it would be better to encourage the creation of lots of energetic, inspired theater companies and to discourage those who no longer have anything to say.
