My Brother's Wife

Black sheep Barney Rusher (John Ritter) regularly embarrasses his snooty father Charles (Dakin Matthews) at the exclusive Jupiter Club, a bastion of snobbish attitudes and a refuge from the braying of the underprivileged. Rebellious since his mother's death, Barney never shines in his dad's eyes like spitting-image Billy Rusher (David Byron), Barney's Brooks Brothers-clad sibling who picks the right career and says the right, socially acceptable things. As a teenage cut-up, Barney humiliates his dad by draping ladies' underwear around the Club library at a Christmas party.

Barney's lifelong mission is to conquer conservative dream girl Eleanor Gilbert (Mel Harris), but her social-climbing mother, Myra (Polly Bergen), didn't groom her daughter to marry a self-styled loser like Barney. When Eleanor chooses the security of marriage to Billy, Barney flips out. He goes AWOL from the navy to attend the wedding, and tries to persuade Eleanor to replay the ending of THE GRADUATE with him. She refuses, and romantically bereft Barney joins the Army, acquires a common-law wife in Vietnam, and dabbles in hippiedom. Eleanor dutifully raises three children, just as her ambitious mother had planned. Nevertheless, Barney continues to reappear and pledge his allegiance to his one true love.

Time passes. Charles marries the vulgar Myra, Eleanor begins to feel the stirrings of marital discontent, and Barney becomes a land developer, tearing up the wilderness for profit. No matter what he accomplishes, misunderstood Barney never reconciles with his dad. At the old man's funeral, Barney posthumously honors him by purchasing the now outmoded Jupiter Club in his name. Then, after years of zealous romantic wooing, Barney finally breaks down Eleanor's reserve. Following her heart, not her mother's lead, Eleanor chooses love over decorum.

Gurney's play is, at best, a superficial concoction. On stage, it's a breezy pastime, but for social comedies to have impact (particularly when their playwrights have a love-hate relationship with the characters), the cast has to be mesmerizingly good. Unfortunately, only stage veteran Dakin Matthews seems to know what he's doing; his fellow actors lack his droll delivery and razor-sharp timing. John Ritter is painfully dull in the pivotal role of Barney, a character it's difficult to like under the best of circumstances. Eleanor is equally off-putting, an indecisive twit who torments her failed suitor for years, dangling herself just out of his moonstruck reach. Unable to make the small, neurotic troubles of its characters compelling, MY BROTHER'S WIFE doesn't wimp out; it WASPs out. (Profanity.) leave a comment