How Cissy Grew
If “Desperate Housewives” star James Denton is trying to grow out of his TV stud muffin image, he chose the wrong vehicle to flex his thespian muscles. This family snapshot drama flips through time like the pages of a photo album, but the emotional effect is flat, overexposed and as fuzzy as Polaroid film. Written by Susan Johnston, “How Cissy Grew” focuses on the deteriorating relationship between a pair of emotionally stunted parents and their self-destructive, rebellious teenage daughter set on a course by one bad turn followed by years of guilt and regret. Contrary to the title, there is no growth here both in the roles and the performances. It might’ve been more on the mark had it been “How Cissy Grew Up in Spite of Her Booze Brained Parents” but it probably wouldn’t have fit the marquee.
The only mystery in “How Cissy Grew” is the lack of chemistry between “Desperate Housewives” hunk James Denton and his off-screen wife Erin J. O’Brien. The play may be about their characters emotional disconnection, but onstage the couple act as if they’re meeting for the first time at an audition. There is nothing cohesive between them, not even their daughter’s unexpected pregnancy produces an emotionally charged scene, instead Denton opts out by simply raising his voice a decibel or two while O’Brien waits patiently for her next cue.
Denton shuffles through his role as Butch, an addict father grappling with a moment of carelessness that almost cost him his daughter’s life. His stoic performance of this “Jim Beam me” man borders on narcolepsy as if the stage lights startled him from a nap. His monologue to the Judge begging for his daughter’s kidnapper to serve the maximum comes across as if he were in traffic court. Denton is easily likable both onstage and on camera, but as Butch lacks conviction and charisma to pull this muddled, absentee father through.
Challenging Denton’s reserve performance, O’Brien canters dangerously close to overplaying Darla as a former wild child, head-banging bar fly floozy. She gyrates and oozes sexuality, but fails to deliver the emotional goods other than a little head patting and cooing. The one scene permissible for O’Brien to let loose she maximizes tremendous restraint that makes the desperate cries of a mother that has lost her child hollow and unconvincing.
Liz Vital rounds off this dysfunctional trio as Cissy, and takes her cues from her veteran playing mom and dad with a bunch of hair twirling (her hair is bone straight at the start of the show) and plenty of petulant eye rolling and pouting that makes one almost feel sorry for the kidnapper for lifting such a bratty kid.
With the exception of Stewart W. Calhoun playing Cissy’s romantic counterparts, the cast play their roles as rubbery as a Halloween mask sold the day after.
The real whodunit here is more like who wrote it. Johnston’s flashback flash forward technique offers fragments of a family torn apart by its own flagellations. This does provide an interesting framework provided there’s something interesting happening, but there isn’t. The characters are played flat because they are flat and there’s no hope for any of the actors to inflate them. Johnston relies on easy stereotypes to create obstacles and tension, and not enough in the plot to support them. There is no closure, no arc and no climax. Other than the sound effects of the wind blowing, nothing moves in this play and it certainly does not move the audience. It is a shame for Denton and O’Brien’s talents to be wasted in this play and hopefully they will choose another with much more gristle to bite their teeth into. For anyone who is such a “Desperate Housewives” fan of James Denton’s Mike Delfino that spending ninety minutes with him in a snug theatre space while sharing the same oxygen, (sorry ladies this is not “Equus”), and that’s an evening well spent, then by all means head on out to NoHo to see this play. If you’re a fan, but a bigger fan of your own time, catch a rerun and be glad you did.
“How Cissy Grew”
El Portal Forum Theatre
5269 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, 91601
Thurs, Fri, & Sat at 8pm
Sundays @ 3pm
PH: 818-508-4200