Meet the Maloneys, your average upper-middle class Palo Alto family: 

There’s 59-year-old patriarch Ian, who gave up attempts to be a painter following a humiliating exhibition of canvasses he and his wife Susan had created together.  A recovering alcoholic, Ian has begun trying his hand at poetry.  As for Susan, the mother of three grown children has reached the point where the only thing that gives her contentment in life is a morning cup of coffee and a scone.

The Maloneys’ 20something daughter Raven has long ago escaped the nest for a successful career as a writer. Not so her somewhat older siblings, Loki and Nora, who still live with Mom and Dad. Loki works at the local Lens Crafters “helping people see” while Nora stays home inventing things. (Her latest creation is the Pudding, a skirt made of sofa cushions, which she asserts, “protects your hips from breaking” in the event of a fall.)

Now, a year’s position as Guest Professor at Stanford has brought Raven Maloney back to her hometown, pet pooch Horny in tow and a new novel hot off the presses. 

Raven’s return to the homestead—and her roman-à-clef entitled Family Needs—prove a catalyst for the revelation of long buried family secrets in Laura Richardson’s Come Back, Little Horny, now getting its world premiere in an absolutely terrific production by 2nd Story Theater. 

More about the Maloneys: 

Ian (Scott Paulin) has the slightly washed-up look of someone who has almost, but not quite, given up on his dreams. The liquor cabinet is locked, his paintbrushes hidden away, but perhaps his poems will provide him the success that his paintings failed to.  Or then again, maybe not.

Susan (Wendy Phillips) looks pretty tired herself. Who wouldn’t be weary with two adult children still living at home, one of them a neurotic with a dark secret in her past, the other quite possibly hiding one of his own?  Loki is, after all, “single, 30s, likes show tunes. Doesn’t look good.”

Nora (Jennifer Erholm) is no more happy with her life than with her name.  “It’s the name of a frumpy, passionless dope,” she complains to Mother, who’s not too happy with “Susan” either. (She’d rather be a Sheba.)

Loki (Brendan Bonner), known as the Fred Astaire of the Palo Alto Community Players (perennial costar Sandra his Ginger Rogers), claims to be perfectly content at Lens Crafters, even without a girlfriend … or boyfriend in sight.

Then Raven (Danielle Weeks), Horny (Jason Paige), and the novel Family Needs arrive to upset the Maloneys’ carefully maintained apple cart.

Though Raven insists that Family Needs is fiction, the secrets she exposes are far from welcome news to the family. Ian is aghast. “You almost left me?” he asks Susan incredulously.  Nora is even angrier at her kid sister. “I don’t knit!” she exclaims.  “Do I knit? Have I ever knitted? I hate knitting. Provincial.  Farm girl.  I’m not that!”  Loki, who makes up song parodies for each of his shows, now belts out “I am I Donny Quixote, The fag of La Mancha, I’m known as a fudge packer …”  (Not that these words mean anything of course.  He’s certainly not about to make any kind of big confession … or is he?)

Is Come Back, Little Horny a comedy? Is it a drama? Considering the number of laughs Richardson’s writing provokes, it’s a good deal more the former than the latter, though in the hands of this very talented and highly original playwright, laughter and tears are never far apart.

Despite their many eccentricities, Richardson’s characters are at their core very real people.  Like so many other long-married couples, Ian and Susan have ongoing conversations with each other that only occasionally intersect.  Bernadette Peters, mothers, HMOs that pay for botox injections, Picasso, Gandhi, chocolate chip cookies, Yoko Ono, and the Bens (Kingsley and Vareen) all figure in the chat Ian and Susan are having when the kids start to arrive.

Under Demson’s splendid direction, performances in Come Back, Little Horny are sensational all around, beginning with its lead couple (who happen to be married in real life as well).

If it is true that “older” actresses are all too often ignored by Hollywood and the theater, then Richardson’s Susan is a gift from heaven for the marvelous Phillips.  (If she looks familiar, it’s because [among other roles] she’s had leads in seven TV series.)  Phillips’ is one of those performances that sneak up on you.  Her easy banter with Paulin seems effortless, as all fine acting ought to, but just wait until she gets to strut her dramatic stuff (equally effortlessly) in a powerful scene opposite the deeply troubled Nora—followed by one heck of a catfight with daughter number two. (Fight choreography courtesy of Samuel Hale.)

The playwright has given Paulin a fantastic role as well and he rewards her with richly layered work.  There is Ian the disappointed painter, the frustrated teacher of “art appreciation to non-majors,” the self-involved would-be poet, the reformed alcoholic, and the post-bender hangover victim, all performed to perfection—in addition to quite possibly the first onstage attempted artificial resuscitation of a fish in theatrical history.

Given the richest and most satisfying of the supporting roles is the marvelous Erholm, whose Nora can evoke laughter in one scene (just watch her hilarious attempts at “graceful” dance moves while wearing a skirt made of cushions) and be heartbreaking in the next, a young woman still haunted by an irreversible decision made while yet a teenager.

Bonner is real, sweet, and funny as poor repressed Loki who creates “silly song parodies for the young guys in the chorus” yet can’t believe that Raven gave him a “gay name” (Lance, no less) in her novel.  Weeks does memorable work as well as the one successful member of the family, whose accomplishments are belied by her still conflicted relationship with her mother and by her codependent relationship with a dog. Making the absolute most of the smallest (but no less well-written) role is Mandel, a hoot and a half as the intense, well-meaning, off-the-wall Sandra (who like Loki is wont to burst into song at the slightest provocation).

Finally, there is Paige’s brilliant work as Horny. In lesser hands, a “human” dog might seem merely a gimmick, but Paige’s performance is extraordinary. Though the actor walks on two legs, Paige somehow manages to convince us that this mix of pug, shepherd and chihuahua is actually walking on all fours. Whether frantically humping Ian (despite having been fixed), or gleefully allowing his head to be scratched, or moving his paw up and down reflexively whenever someone touches it, or slurping up water out of his bowl, or lifting his leg to go peepee on the sofa, Paige makes us believe that we are seeing a living breathing canine on stage.  In his best Horny moment, Paige’s human face somehow reflects a dog’s dismay at being ignored when he so desperately needs to do #2—until the inevitable happens. Paige not only gives the “best performance of the year as a dog,” it’s one of the best you’ll see by an actor as well.

Demson never allows Richardson’s characters’ eccentricities to become cartoonish, thus insuring that the play’s more serious interludes never appear out of left field. And Richardson’s writing is rich indeed as in this exquisite speech given by Phillips as Susan: “Contentment is all we can hope for because happiness only exists in small fleeting moments. A good cup of coffee in the morning.  I had some insane idea that once you got happy it would last forever. My windmill. What’s constant is feeling alive, feeling dead.  It’s quick, it’s in that moment, and while it’s happening you think it will last forever but just as soon it’s gone.  I take a sip and feel good. That’s enough. I have enough.” How’s that for great writing?

Donna Marquet has designed a wonderfully detailed set, with its thirty-plus years of accumulated books, paintings, and other paraphernalia beautifully lit by Derrick McDaniel. Peter Carlstedt’s sound design includes a Jacques Brel French-language version of “The Impossible Dream” and a punk rock “Imagine,” by John Lennon.

I loved Richardson’s previous comedy, Do Do Love, which I described as “skillfully blend(ing) quirky humor with moments of real poignancy.” Blessed with a dream cast, director, and design team, the same can be said for the even richer and more satisfying Come Back, Little Horny.

Lost Studio Theatre, 130 S. La Brea Ave., Hollywood.
http://comebacklittlehorny.com/

–Steven Stanley
May 23, 2009
                                                                                             Photo: Anela