Tara Alexandra Brown, Marshall McCabe, Lou Saliba and Kate Brady (Photo by Chris Farina)
Reviewed by Joel Beers
Kentwood Players at Westchester Playhouse
Through April 4
RECOMMENDED
Tara Alexandra Brown and Lou Saliba (Photo by Chris Farina)
If you’re looking to step back in time (and really, who among us wouldn’t these days?), look no further than one of Los Angeles’ oldest theaters for Ken Levine’s comedy, Guilty Pleasures. Though written only about ten years ago, this play feels more like Noël Coward meets The Love Boat than Jen Silverman — an impeccably turned sex farce that might have killed in 1986 but feels oddly preserved in 2026.
Everything about it is old-school: from the setting — a supposedly posh Mediterranean cruise ship — to the sitcom-like structure, less literary theater than precision-engineered comedy: setup, reversal, button, repeat. Which makes sense: Levine has one of those résumés, a six-time Emmy-nominated writer with more than 200 episodes of sitcoms ranging from MASH* and Cheers to Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond. This play is Levine taking those sitcom instincts — timing, banter, sexual politics — and putting them into a classic farce structure.
The play’s title works on two levels: The ocean-lining voyage at the heart of the plot is both a literal cruise and an excuse to step back into a world of guilt-free cocktails, flirtations, and indulgence, while the farce itself serves as a playful retreat from the seriousness of 2026 theater. It’s also terrifically funny, despite — or perhaps because of — its anachronistic nature. There’s little here of the messiness or moral ambiguity that defines much contemporary theater — just sleek setups, reversals, and payoffs in a sealed comic ecosystem. It reads like an artifact, and yet it kills: big, unapologetic laughs that showcase how durable this machinery can be.
The story centers on two very different married couples on a Mediterranean cruise. Jinx and Larry Berman are relative nobodies (though Larry has won a Pulitzer for a weighty, highbrow play about the Holocaust) compared to the other couple: Larry Drake, a highly decorated CNN anchorman, and his wife Charlene Uranga, a glamorous Hollywood star. Yet despite the differences in fame and appearance, both couples have their difficulties. Larry is mired in writer’s block, while Jinx yearns for passion, adventure, and sophistication. Meanwhile, Larry Drake and Charlene are trapped in a superficial, nearly loveless marriage — they’ve already split at the play’s start and maintain appearances only for the sake of the gawking cruise passengers.
Jinx and Larry concoct a preposterous challenge: They agree to give each other a “fidelity pass” aboard the ship — but only if that infidelity involves Peter or Charlene. Chaos ensues as Larry’s bumbling attempts at seducing Charlene collide with Jinx’s schemes, creating a risqué, farcical version of The Love Boat.
Given Jonathan Fahn’s brisk direction and a strong ensemble, the play is easy to enjoy. As Jinx and Larry, Tara Alexandra Brown and Lou Saliba are particularly effective, injecting outlandish timing and banter into characters yearning for something more. In a play where characters rarely stand still, Brown delivers the most grounded performance as Jinx, balancing comic timing with flashes of real-world frustration and desire. Her portrayal adds surprising emotional depth to an otherwise breezy farce, keeping the audience invested in her character’s schemes and yearnings. Marshall McCabe’s Peter and Kate Brady’s Charlene are strong, though their characters play more to type: Peter as the charming manipulator of appearances, Charlene as the impossibly glamorous — and equally impossible — vapid foil. Even Saliba veers dangerously close to type, a serious playwright tumbling through ridiculous, old-school comedic chaos. Also of special note is Jason Owsley’s hilarious voice-over as the cruise ship operator, which circulates throughout the play.
And yet, for all its anachronistic mechanics, Guilty Pleasures lands big laughs. It may be a throwback — a deliberately anachronistic, gleaming artifact of old-school farce — but it proves that skillful timing, sharp banter, and spirited comic invention, even when aimed at the broadest audience, never go out of style. Buoyed by a script that delivers unapologetic laughs while slyly acknowledging its own silliness, the play reminds audiences that maybe the best escape from modern theater’s and modern life’s weight and self-seriousness is simply to sit back, sip a cocktail, and enjoy the ride.
Westchester Playhouse 8301 Hindry Ave., Los Angeles. Fri. 8 pm, Sat. 2 & 8 pm Sun. 2 pm; thru April 4. https://kentwoodplayers.org Running time: 2 hours with an intermission.
