Heartbreak Help

Reviewed by Paul Birchall
Dorie Theatre at the Complex
Through October 1

RECOMMENDED

Director Stan Zimmerman’s remount of Justin Tanner’s piquant 1996 comedy provides the opportunity for a perfect storm of sorts, with Tanner’s quick-witted writing and multi-dimensional characters combined at a fevered pitch with Zimmerman’s assured comic timing.

As a playwright, Tanner has long been considered one of the L.A.’s great treasures, and Heartbreak Help rises from the tail end of his best period. Zimmerman, meanwhile, has been honing his razor-sharp talents on TV series like Gilmore Girls and The Golden Girls.  And while it’s true that this piece hews to the tropes and styles of a TV sitcom, the pairing of these dual talents is so dreamy, you wish that they’d do each other’s projects on a set schedule.

The play is set in a Joshua Tree motel room, shared by four women who are attending “Women, Writer, Warrior,” a New Age conference taking place in the nearby desert. Embittered, emotionally sour Margo (Melissa Peterman) is hoping to gain perspective on the habits that torpedo her relationships. She immediately locks horns with the waiflike but surprisingly brittle Paula (Teresa Ganzel), who talks the language of mindfulness and contentment, but still must sleep with hypoallergenic pillows, and freaks out if her toothbrush gets wet in the sink.

Into their already tight quarters comes Andromeda (Marissa Jaret Winokur), a struggling New Age-type she-shaman. Andromeda is trying to build a career by teaching seminars on crystals and meditation, but she’s sabotaged by the frustrated rage that so visibly lurks beneath her unconvincingly placid exterior. She’s accompanied by her teenage daughter Sage (Sarah Gilman), who is there under protest and considers all the New Age stuff to be, well, bullshit. It goes without saying that these four ladies really shouldn’t be in the same room together, let alone roomies for the weekend — and the trouble, when it ensues, is hilarious.

Zimmerman’s staging is wonderfully tight, and Tanner’s one-liners and gags flow with the timing of a Swiss watch.  It is surprising how much mileage a writer and a director can get out of four ladies engaging in a sort of No Exit series of interactions in a motel room.

The show premiered some years back, and since then some of the satire —of self-help and New Age seminars, for example — has become somewhat dated. Yet the characters remain remarkably fully developed and nuanced. Zimmerman artfully fleshes out their relationships, which shift and change over the course of their time together: the mutual impatience between Paula and Margo segues into their joint dislike of Andromeda, and then to a gradual awareness that they have more in common than they at first realized.

Performances are a delight. The production features an ensemble whose pedigree is almost too powerhouse for the tiny stage at the Dorie Theater.  Peterman has been a regular on several TV series, and she brings with her a precision that yanks a laugh at just about every one of her venomous opinions. It’s also a pleasure to see Winokur, a Tony Award-winner for Hairspray, tear the stage apart through sheer personality.  The show, which runs for another weekend, is a brief 70 minutes, and offers a unique chance to see great performers at the top of their game. 

Dorie Theatre at the Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood; Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through October 1. https://heartbreakhelp.bpt.me/ Running time: 80 minutes with no intermission..