Olive and the Bitter Herbs

I'd never seen a Charles Busch show until this weekend, which I do happen to see as a personal failing. I had, though, seen his movies Die, Mommie, Die! (which I enjoyed) and Psycho Beach Party (which I looooooved). And I'd read the scripts of Tales of the Allergist's Wife and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. There's really no excuse for my not having seen The Divine Sister, especially since it ran for ages.

ANYway, Busch has a new show, Olive and the Bitter Herbs, which I did see. Even so, I can't actually claim the initiative for having gone out to get a ticket on my own (thanks, Lee!). Regardless, after years of familiarity with the man, the myth, the lady, I finally encountered one of his productions. And liked it! Yes, there will be quibbles, but I enjoyed myself quite a bit nonetheless.

Played by Marcia Jean Kurtz, Olive is a brittle older actress best known for her work in the "Gimme the sausage" ad campaign. As the play starts, she's had two strokes ("episodes") and become mostly homebound, spending her time terrorizing the neighbors, the super, and the co-op director with her ridiculous complaints. Wendy, a younger woman played by the delightful Julie Halston, has spent eight months tending to her and trying to help her get back into her life. This involves trying to negotiate peace with the gay couple next door (dapper editor Robert and acerbic illustrator Trey). Meanwhile, the co-op board director's father, Sylvan arrives also hoping to calm the bitter bitch down. The sixth character, unseen and unheard, is the ghost who appears in Olive's mirror. Who he is and what he means to the various characters forms the crux of the play.

Kurtz does a good job of being hateable enough to alienate the other characters while maintaining just a shred enough dignity for the audience to still give a hoot. She definitely felt like she was still getting some lines and timing down, but it was the first week of previews, so I can't complain. Richard Masur as the thrice-widowed Sylvan shined brightest for me. Admittedly, he had the warmest character to play, but he was utterly delightful and gave a performance that felt incredibly comfortable and well-worn. Sylvan is as charming as he is easily charmed, and his track record of dating difficult women (do you see where this is going?) is utterly believable. More than anyone else, he sees through Olive (unlike the bitter herbs), and is the real emotional core of the play.

So what are the problems? In spite of the presence of a ghost, the play largely feels quite realistic until midway through the second act where coincidence piles on coincidence. It's intentional, and it's funny, but it also feels straight out of an absurdist play which the rest of this is decidedly not. And ultimately, I felt like the entire ghost subplot could have been excised and left a more straightforward play (that was still quite funny) about one woman railing against the world. But that could be unfair--I might just be trying to edit it into a different show in my head. Really, what's there is quite charming and includes a lot of very entertaining moments. It's just a touch tonally uneven and, while it moves at a solid clip, could use some judicious trimming, Still an entertaining show if a bit more Die, Mommie, Die! than Psycho Beach Party.