by Joel Elkins~

Could you write a play if someone held a gun to your head? When someone did this to Doug Haverty, the unfortunate result was Next Window, Please, now making its theatrical debut at the Lonny Chapman Theatre.

While working as the manager at a Crocker Bank in Hollywood, Haverty was robbed at gunpoint. As bank robberies go, this one was relatively uneventful. No one was hurt, and the perpetrator was quickly apprehended. But it inspired him to write a play about his experience, not so much about the robbery itself, but about the overall experience of working in a bank.

Some situations are so interesting they virtually write themselves. Working in a bank is not among those. There may be a great play hiding somewhere in that boulder, but Mr. Haverty is evidently not the sculptor to carve it out. The dialogue is rudimentary and unengaging. The story line is hackneyed and linear. And the characters are close to, but just a couple cents short of, being really believable.

The play features the bank’s somber yet maternalistic bank manager (Kady Douglas), the hunky and ambitious executive-in-training (Chris Jordan Wolfe), and the five female tellers (Stephanie Colet, Bianca Gisselle, Trisha Hershberger, Shelby Kocee and Gina Yates), each with her own accent and back story. The only real storyline justifying the over two hours of often pointless dialogue is the rumor that, due to the bank’s recent merger, it would be closing half its branches and laying off half its work force. The tellers understandably worry about being downsized during this economy while management frets about the agonizing recommendations it must make to corporate.

The ending is almost laughably unrealistic, as it attempts to not only tie up but cauterize all the loose ends in a matter of minutes. Like an over-rich dessert trying to make up for an inferior meal, this syrupy denouement is tacked on apparently as a cheap and easy way to send the audience home happy and with a good taste in its collective mouth. It doesn’t, at least not for this diner.

That’s not to say that the production itself is completely without merit. The set design is appropriately clean, simple and perfectly reminiscent of a modern-day bank. The actors, particularly the five female tellers, do well with the mediocre material, especially excelling during their individual monologues.

Richard Alan Woody’s direction, which generally serves only to exacerbate the flaws in the script, partially redeems itself on the virtue of these monologues, somehow brimming with the emotional depth and sensitivity sadly lacking during the rest of the play.

However, Mr. Woody and the cast are hopelessly hamstrung by a script in dire need of a major rewrite. Let’s hope Mr. Haverty doesn’t require a gun to the head this time.

Next Window, Please is performed Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm September 17, 2011

Lonny Chapman Theatre is located at 10900 Burbank Blvd., two blocks east of Vineland in North Hollywood

Ticket prices: $15-22 (Thursdays are “Pay What You Can” and Fridays are “Ladies Night – ½ Price”)

Reservations online at www.thegrouprep.com or by phone at (818) 700-4878