Great acting can't save 'Better Late'
Northlight Theatre's "Better Late" plays like a sitcom, or rather, a "very special episode" of a sitcom. You know, the tearjerker with the Important Message that airs during ratings sweeps.
Written by TV veterans Larry Gelbart ("M*A*S*H") and Craig Wright ("Dirty Sexy Money," "Brothers & Sisters"), the uneven "Better Late" wraps its feel-good message of atonement and forgiveness around a comically poignant predicament involving the members of a love triangle 25 years earlier, whose lives again become entwined.
Following a stroke, elderly Julian (Mike Nussbaun) goes to recuperate at the home of his ex-wife Nora (Linda Kimbrough) and her second husband, Lee (John Mahoney), whose affair with Nora ended her marriage.
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The laughs come like clockwork (another sitcom trademark). They tend toward the darkly comic with most of the jokes related to aging, illness and death. Of a recently deceased acquaintance Lee says, he "died like an old cucumber and was buried like a Russian side dish." At the cemetery following a sparsely attended funeral ("if you want a big turnout, die young"), Lee observes of an ailing attendee, "it hardly pays to go home from here."
The play touches on some compelling issues related to aging: apologizing, purging guilt and righting wrongs. But the slight "Better Late" (the tacit "than never," which concludes the axiomatic title, is understood), never evolves into a substantive drama.
The acting is another story. It unspools like silk off a bolt under the smooth direction of B.J. Jones. As usual, Nussbaum is on target: adopting a quavering voice (a common senior ploy) to coax sympathy from his ex-wife or earning it legitimately from the audience with his touching acknowledgment that, late in life, he has only himself.
Mahoney fumbled with some of the dialogue opening night, but he delivered the punchlines like a pro and his performance reflected the thoughtfulness he brings to his roles.
Kimbrough's exquisite reactions are among her most potent tools. However, too often in this production she wears the same wide-eyed, furrowed-brow expression. Then, Jones positions her facing upstage, depriving half the audience of it altogether.
The blue-chip trio of Kimbrough, Mahoney and Nussbaum has an impeccable junior partner in Steve Key, who plays Julian and Nora's son Billy, a man whose marital problems sadly mirror those of his parents.
"Better Late"
2 stars out of four
Location: Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie
Times: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays; 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2:30 and 7 p.m. Sundays through May 11
Running Time: About 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $35-$55
Parking: Lot adjacent to the theater
Box office: (847) 673-6300 or www.northlight.org
Rating: For adults, strong language, mature subject matter