Harold and Maude
Reviewed by G. Bruce Smith
The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre
Through March 19
RECOMMENDED
Harold and Maude, the 1971 dark comedy film that was commercially and critically unsuccessful when first released but eventually attracted a cult following, is also an adapted stage play (by the late Colin Higgins, author of both) being presented at the Lonny Chapman Theatre. In this Group Rep production, the unlikely romance between a morose 19-year-old man and a delightfully eccentric 80-year-old is more comedy than dark, but it is terrifically funny and, ultimately, poignant.
Harold (Landon Beatty) is a somber teenager whose idea of attention-getting fun is staging outlandish fake suicides, something that causes his wealthy socialite mother Mrs. Chason (Susan Priver) much vexation but also, oddly, weary acceptance. So much so that at the beginning of the play, when she sees Harold hanging from a rope around his neck, she is hardly fazed, much to the horror of a newly hired maid. Mrs. Chason is keen to get her strange son a girlfriend and enlists the support of a computer dating service.
Meanwhile, Harold meets Maude (Clara Rodriguez) at a funeral; it turns out they both are enamored with attending funerals of strangers. But in almost every other way, they are total opposites. Where he is glum, she is full of joie de vivre. Where he confesses that he likes being “dead,” she urges him to live life fully. Where he is apathetic, she is a tree-planting, wildlife-rescuing political activist with an undying optimism, despite a horrendous past chapter of her life. At the same time, she thinks nothing of stealing cars or squatting in uninhabited houses because, as she says, “Isn’t ownership a little absurd? Here today, gone tomorrow.” Those last four words of dialogue would prove to be prescient.
At home, Mrs. Chason’s plan to find a girlfriend for Harold has been sabotaged by more of her son’s “suicidal” antics. Two potential matches flee in horror from Harold’s shenanigans. A third — an older actress named Sunshine Doré (Gina Yates) — goes along with Harold’s dramatics with delight and histrionics in one of the funniest scenes in the play.
All of this leads to the moving ending of the play and a changed Harold.
As Maude, Clara Rodriguez is absolutely luminous as she so fully inhabits the character’s humor, eccentricities, joy, wisdom and vulnerabilities that you find yourself falling in love with her in step with Harold.
Landon Beatty, who likely has one of the more challenging roles, is a convincing Harold as he conveys his character’s transformation.
Susan Priver is appropriately hand-wringing and self-centered as Mrs. Chason, while Gina Yates in just one scene gets the biggest laughs in the show.
For the most part, the action, under the helm of Larry Eisenberg, flows smoothly, but on opening night, the pacing was somewhat slow in parts and exits were sometimes awkward. The set by Mareli Mitchel-Shields was a bit of a hodgepodge but a screen at the rear of the stage sets the scene well.
One of Maude’s more memorable lines is, “The main thing is not to be afraid to be human.” And clearly, Harold and Maude has not been afraid to show its humanity.
Note: The roles of Harold and Maude are double cast: Landon Beatty and Clara Rodriguez perform together; and John Ledley and Janet Wood perform together.
Lonny Chapman Theatre Main Stage, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; through Mar. 19. (818) 763-5990 or thegrouprep.com. Running time: two hours and 15 minutes with a 15-minute intermission.
