Before I could even make it up the stairs to my seat for Smithfield Little Theatre’s “Breakfast with Les and Bess”, I had turned my head at least three times to catch glimpses of the magnificent set – the fancy 1960s New York apartment that morning radio show hosts Les and Bess broadcast from.  There is a beautiful backlit cityscape out the window, really neat little doorways leading offstage with insets looking into a kitchen and hallway, a fireplace, a chandelier hanging from a faux ceiling above the front door, and a platform building the upstage area a couple of feet higher than the rest of the stage.  It is as if set designer Rob Fortner and set dresser Rob Lauer saw Andrew Smith and Robert Cox’s set work on “Murder on the Orient Express” just a few months ago at SLT and thought – yeah, we can do that – and then they did.

In the 1960s, I don’t think many people had yet discovered the perils of the work-from-home job; Les and Bess, however, are the exception.  Each morning, they pull out their radio equipment, call into the station, and speak to the nation over their breakfast, right from their own kitchen table.  And Bess, for one, seems to love it.  Played by Tressa Bern with an air of pomp and class, Bess enjoys the late night social parties, the phone interviews with Monacan royalty, the fame and all of its trappings.  Les, on the other hand, seems to have hit a mid-life crisis, dreaming of what he sees as the good old days, when they were young, him calling baseball games for the St. Louis Browns, and her an ambitious, youthful political reporter.  In the role of Les is Bob Cohen, who rambles his way through this role like a man lost for purpose, quick-witted in his search for a happiness which may have never existed, willing to upend everything in that never-ending scavenger hunt. 

Oh yeah – those perils of working from home – those would be embodied by the interruptions of Les and Bess’s two 20-year-old children, Shelby and David.  Shelby is the first to interrupt the proceedings – well, second, entering only after her – surprise! – new husband Roger walks out of the bedroom looking for the bathroom.  Shelby is played with all the giggles and hysterics of a young person rebelling against their parents by Riley Brooker, who we recently enjoyed in PCT’s “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol”, while Roger’s straight-laced Naval officer stoicism is portrayed by Rainer Vollette.  If the sudden marriage of their daughter to a man she had only known for three days wasn’t enough to throw their morning show into chaos, let’s add the news that their other child, David, is in jail after driving a car into a lake – and you’ve got yourself a very good day to play a previously recorded interview on your radio show.

The men in this show have a way of espousing one thing with their words, but their actions say something else.  Les is constantly bringing up how he wants to finish his book, and yet, not only has he never finished the book he is writing (proclaiming that, if only he had a good title, it would all come together), he can’t even finish reading his self-described favorite book, “Anna Karenina”.  Roger comes across as stoic and steady – but he did just marry a woman he has only known for three days.  And David (played convincingly by Joey Pendleton, a natural conversationalist on stage who understands the flow of the moment and when to push a little harder in a scene versus back off) is smart enough to argue for the NAACP and ACLU but dumb enough to drive a car into a lake to impress a girl and to join a rock band despite a total lack of musical knowledge.  In fact, the only male character who is reliably what he claims to be is Nate, the friend of Les who comes back with him, drunk as a skunk, and proceeds to hilariously writhe around on the couch just wishing for some quiet nap time (a very funny and appropriately wobbly performance from the aforementioned set designer Rob Fortner).

On the face, “Breakfast with Les and Bess” is a comedy about finding happiness amidst a changing world and your crazy family.  And there are some very funny lines mixed in, delivered well by this cast – notably, Shelby saying “When Alexander the Great was 20, he conquered Persia” following by the quick wit of Les “Yeah, but his folks knew where he was.”  Or, in a moment of self-reflection:

Bess: We really messed up our kids.

Les: It is not entirely our fault.

Bess: Thank God.

It is under the surface, however, where the true weight of the emotion and nature of the show arise for me – and I’m unsure if that is the intent of the playwright or if it is just me looking at the show with my 21^st century eyes.  For example, there is a scene, very well put together by director Katy Feldl, where a drunk Les has locked the cabinet with the radio microphone and won’t give Bess the key just before their show is going on air.  This scene is funny on the surface – Bess chasing Les around the set, as they play keep away with the keys to a superficial talk radio show – and most of the audience laughed.  But I felt myself overcome with sadness and the feeling of desperation and pressure that Bess must be feeling in that moment.  Her entire family is there, watching her inebriated husband force his idea of happiness on her by way of public humiliation, her sense of duty to her job and her own happiness be damned.  And while it may seem like Bess has other professional options – let’s remember that this is the 1960s, and what Les is suggesting is for Bess to move to Houston with him and become fully reliant on his wealth and income, leaving Bess without what fulfills her.  And while the play in many ways paints a picture of Bess being the villain, succumbing to the allure of fame and being unwilling to give that up (and certainly there are no heroes in this show) – maybe we should be more wary of Les, the man who is stuck in the middle of the book, the fantasy of the past, unwilling or unable to get to the end of “Anna Karenina”, to find that his favorite book ends (spoiler alert) in the suicide of the main character.  Maybe this is really the true point of this play – that you have to change with the times, get to the end of the book, and make your own happiness – re-living the glory days of the past gets you nowhere. 

Or maybe it is just a light-hearted comedy.  You’ll have to decide for yourself.  But the interesting conversation in our car on the way home was about the total lack of consideration in the play that a woman’s happiness might be derived from something other than keeping a nice home, family, and husband – and if that is the intent of the playwright, another element of the changing times that was considered originally – or if perhaps that is from the continued changing of the times since the show came out.