Theatre in Review: Cactus Flower (Westside Arts Theatre) Do you remember sex comedy? If so, you're showing your age. Between, say, The Moon is Blue, in 1951, and Last of the Red Hot Lovers, in 1970, no season went by without half a dozen or more such examples of this now-defunct genre. Aside from musicals, sex comedy was Broadway's staple product and more than a few -- The Seven-Year Itch, Any Wednesday, and Never Too Late among others-- had blockbuster runs A product of the era's social attitudes, sex comedy declined as mores changed; as William Goldman points out in his fascinating book of reportage, The Season, by the 1967-68 season-- when a leading attraction was There's a Girl in My Soup -- playwrights struggled to keep up with the sexual tevolution. The basic conventions of the genre -- the swinging bachelors, kooky young girls, staunch young Romeos, and acidulous mature women -- were suddenly looking out of date. Cactus Flower, which ran for over 1,200 performances between 1965 and 1968, managed to successfully surf these changing currents. Adapted by Abe Burrows from a play by the French team of Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy, it features Julian Winston, a middle-aged dentist who keeps Toni, his girlfriend, at bay by pretending that he's a married man with three children. When Toni, depressed at being the other woman, attempts suicide, Julian has a change of heart and proposes. Trouble is, he's got that mythical family to dispose of - and Toni demands to meet Julian's wife. Desperate to resolve matters, Julian presses Stephanie, his all-business office nurse, into playing Mrs. Winston for a one-time-only meeting with Toni. Of course, this little ruse snowballs into a nightmarish tangle of complications, requiring the fictitious Mrs. Winston to be trotted out time and again in an increasingly mortifying set of situations. If you are going to make a case for sex comedy, Cactus Flower probably isn't the place to start. Viewed from the distance of five decades, the plot barely makes sense and much of the dialogue falls flat. (If Toni insists on meeting Mrs. Winston, why doesn't she ask to see the children?) Then again, given Michael Bush's amateurishly staged, tackily designed production, it's impossible to know for sure. An import from Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany, it comes across more like an Equity showcase. The designer Anna Louizos is normally a genius at packing multiple sets on a single stage; here, she comes up with a unit design that fails to evoke any of a half a dozen locations. (I'm guessing she was hamstrung by budget issues.) Philip Rosenberg's lighting gets the job done, but it features some rather harsh sidelight looks. Karen Ann Ledger's costumes are extremely spotty. When Lois Robbins, as Stephanie, makes her big Cinderella entrance in an evening gown, the outfit is unflattering, ill-fitting, and topped by an unconvincing wig. Brad Berridge's sound design bridges the scenes with selections from the likes of Burt Bacharach and Sonny and Cher, an all-too-obvious choice that doesn't really reflect the characters. The company has clearly been directed to give zany performances, which results in the kind of mugging one sees on lesser TV sitcoms. Overall, the women are slightly better. Jenni Barber manages to play Toni without patronizing her, and, as Stephanie -- a role that turned Lauren Bacall into a Broadway favorite -- Lois Robbins manages a few laughs. As Julian -- a role originally taken by the great Barry Nelson, the undisputed king of Broadway sex comedy -- Maxwell Caulfield gives a flustered, unconvincing performance. Jeremy Bobb seems equally equally uncomfortable as the aspiring playwright who'd love to have Toni for himself. The supporting players all mug shamelessly. With its running time of two-and-a-half hours, Cactus Flower is, frankly, a long, unpleasant slog. Weirdly, these days we are in the middle of a Barillet and Gredy revival: Cactus Flower provided the source material for the Adam Sandler-Jennifer Aniston vehicle Just Go with It, and Potiche, the Catherine Deneuve comedy soon to be released in the US, is based on a B&G play that was briefly seen on Broadway as A Little Family Business, starring Angela Lansbury. Still, the time is probably not yet ripe for a sex comedy revival -- if it ever will be. But, before we table the discussion forever, I'd like to note that there is one example of the genre that is, I believe, eminently revivable. Jean Kerr's Mary, Mary, a long-runner from 1961, is, arguably the only sex comedy for adults, as it focuses on a divorced couple who can't live with or without each other. The script is witty and a model of construction. If it got a first-class production -- unlike the one afflicting Cactus Flower -- we might see sex comedy in an entirely different light.--David Barbour 
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