Carr Helps Make ‘Lettice’ Mostly Lovely

Jane Carr performs vocal acrobatics in “Lettice & Lovage” at the Pasadena Playhouse. Listen to her rapid rolling of her Rs. Observe as her voice climbs to the top of the tent and then comes swooping halfway down in some crashing irony. How amusing. How thoroughly British.

No British actress has become a more sterling presence on the L.A. theater scene, so it probably was inevitable that someone would ask Carr to play the role of Lettice Douffet, the tour guide who wants to make history come alive, no matter how unreliable her facts.

Because Peter Shaffer’s comedy is primarily a star vehicle (originally crafted for Maggie Smith), Carr is the main attraction of David Galligan’s staging at the Pasadena Playhouse. She glides smoothly through her paces, strewing laughter throughout the theater.

It isn’t a one-woman show, however. Mary Jo Catlett, released at last from her bulky costume as the flamboyant armoire in L.A.’s “Beauty and the Beast,” plays Lettice’s by-the-book boss at the Preservation Trust, a role that initially is the antithesis of flamboyance.

Catlett’s Charlotte Schoen is firm without being a martinet. Although her inflections are only lightly English, Catlett lets us glimpse a touch of humanity in this character even in the first act, as she’s firing Lettice for playing loose with the facts on her tours of Fustian House, England’s most boring manor.

This brings us back to the play itself--a somewhat frustrating experience.

The first act is solid, workmanlike comedy, as Lettice’s tours become increasingly theatrical and decreasingly accurate, as she butts heads with the stern Schoen. The second act successfully switches gears to become a warm slice of female bonding; Schoen goes out of her way to strike up a friendship with the employee she fired. Although this sounds unlikely, Shaffer pulls it off and also makes a few more serious points about the deterioration of the modern sensibility, especially evident in British architecture.

With just a little revising, the play could end then and there, but no, Shaffer wrote a contrived third act in which the new friendship is momentarily sundered and then put back together. This does provide a new source of comedy in the role of Lettice’s solicitor, played by the impeccably appropriate Ian Abercrombie, especially funny as he assumes the role of drummer in one of Lettice’s more lurid fantasies. But the third act is still a net loss, extending the play to nearly three hours on a very flimsy pretext.

Nonetheless, Galligan’s cast holds up as well as can be expected. Zoe DuFour’s costumes add a few chuckles. Gary Wissmann’s set makes Fustian House’s purportedly grand staircase look so pedestrian that we can understand why Lettice lies about it, yet its drab appearance also leads us to question Shaffer’s apparent preference for old buildings over the new.

* “Lettice & Lovage,” Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 22. $13.50-$39.50. (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

Jane Carr: Lettice Douffet

Mary Jo Catlett: Charlotte Schoen

Ian Abercrombie: Mr. Bardolph

Henrietta Valor: Miss Framer

Jane Crawley: Woman in Crowd

Stuart McLean: Surly Man

Erica Rogers: Woman With Baby

By Peter Shaffer. Directed by David Galligan. Sets by Gary Wissmann. Lighting by Kevin Mahan. Costumes by Zoe DuFour. Sound by Thomas Connors. Production stage manager Elsbeth M. Collins.