LA Review: 'Tickled Pink'

“Tickled Pink,” a new play by Rita Rudner and her husband, Martin Bergman, both benefits and suffers from Rudner’s strengths as a comedian. Its debut production at the Laguna Playhouse reveals a flawed but funny work-in-progress. The humor is wry, self-deprecating, and occasionally raunchy, and in its fondness for breaking the fourth wall “Tickled Pink” offers the perfect forum for its characters to deliver Rudner’s best jokes directly to the audience, as she does in her Las Vegas routines. But with 13 actors playing 36 roles in almost 40 scenes and a story that tries to dramatize too much of Rudner’s 2002 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, “Tickled Pink” sorely needs the firm hand of an editor to streamline and focus it.

Emma Fassler is Mindy Solomon, an obvious double for the young Rudner. Like the comedian, Mindy is a dancer who leaves her hometown of Miami for New York, where she dreams of performing on Broadway. She doesn’t know a soul but soon befriends a willowy model named Ursula Duran (Annie Abrams). Just as Mindy begins to succeed as a hoofer, an injury ends her career. She turns to comedy on a whim after she makes people laugh during a standup stint. Encouraged, she soon finds success. The central conflict of the play comes late, but it’s enough to hang the whole story on. A young writer named Mitch (Michael Kirby) falls for Mindy after he sees her perform. He creates a sitcom for her and sells it to ABC. Mitch assures Mindy that she’ll land the lead role, but studio suits decide otherwise. They cast a pretty and tall novice actor instead: Ursula. That disaster destroys Mindy’s relationship with Ursula and her budding romance with Mitch. The second and better-written half of “Tickled Pink” concerns the slow, painful path to reconciliation between Mindy and them.

A herd of talented actors get their moments in the sun but are often underutilized. Floyd Van Buskirk exploits the silences as Mindy’s laconic dad. Betsy Reisz mixes wicked wit and pathos as Penelope, a failed comic who’s a talented writer. Greg Bryan scores laughs as a morose, death-obsessed comedian. Rudner plays three characters, all of them memorable, including Ursula’s monstrous stage mom. Abrams and Fassler anchor the show. They make the Mindy-Ursula relationship convincing and its mid-play dissolution poignant. Fassler is a likable and understated actor with low-key but unerring comic timing. Abrams gives Ursula a sunny nature and kindness that seem genuine despite the character’s ambition.

D. Martyn Bookwalter’s set, like the script, seems underconceived. It consists of sliding screens and soft-edged projected images, and they move awkwardly at times. Bergman directs with the assurance of a comedy veteran, but some scenes are rushed.

“Tickled Pink” could use an editorial scrub down, and it needs to lose scenes and characters to be widely producible. Nevertheless, full of Rudner’s sharp, sardonic wit, it’s a rose that’s well worth pruning.

Presented by and at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Rd., Laguna Beach. April 24–May 20. Tue.–Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 and 7 p.m. (Additional performance Thu., May 10, 2 p.m.; no performance Sun., May 20, 7 p.m.) (949) 497-2787 or www.lagunplayhouse.com. Casting by Wally Ziegler.