Half endearing, half unendurable

Did you know that "men and women can destroy each other on a single moonlit night"? That "we are what we were"? That "yesterdays form today"?

That "truth is unkind to hope"?

No? What's wrong with you - you don't wallow in ooey-gooey truisms? Well, Jonathan Daly would never stand for that - his clunky A Good Look at Boney Kern is just bursting with this stuff the minute it becomes serious, which is a wretched half the time.

The other half of this play about a blind woman who befriends a wuss of a boarder, against her stiff-necked mother's commands, is funny and endearing. Boney Kern is a schizophrenic work, salvaged by some powerfully fine - I would go so far as to say grand - acting in a production at Montgomery Theater in Souderton.

Even though director Tom Quinn has allowed every scene to end with lighting cues that seem longer than sunset, he keeps the rest of the production quick-paced - essential for a play that has a lot of fast, witty lines among its sheath of shibboleths you'd best strut through without giving anyone time to think, which would be fatal. (To the play. And maybe the audience.)

Boney Kern is a four-character affair, set in an old house in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka. The place is owned by Alice Hale, a stuffy, irritable old woman who protects her blind granddaughter, whom she's raised, from everything real and some things unreal. She's portrayed by Jean Brooks in a performance so meticulously crafted, you'll gasp at the way she not only assumes the role, she consumes it.

The unspeakably proud Mrs. Hale takes on a male boarder for the summer, against her judgment - an English teacher named Boney Kern, played with convincing nebbishness and perfect theatrical timing by Marc Weil, who wrings every laugh out of a response, even if the audience fully expects the nervous movement, the retort, or the gaze of fear. Weil, playing the sole character in Boney Kern who has more than a single dimension, also does wonderfully with his part of the icky, unrealistic serious stuff.

Sarah Kiefer, a lovely actress with curly tresses, plays the blind granddaughter with great style. She's irresistible - a real credit because she's stuck with the script's largest helping of tripe; she finds a way to make the empty little epiphanies roll right off herself. They managed to whirl right on to me, but that was the playwright's fault, not hers.

The fourth character is a kid named Arthur, a hop-head who pops up at the house now and then. He's a misfire from the director, who lets Brian Hinkle portray the guy with such an exaggerated doped-up Valley-Boy persona that he's an outrageously dumb stereotype. Even here, though, Hinkle saves his role: If you're going to portray an extreme, you might as well do it with his panache.

I had hoped the material playing out on A. Clark Duncan's appropriate wooden-interior set would move me, given the potential for a romantic drama between a pretty blind woman and the total schlub she cannot see. But truth, you know, is unkind to hope. I learned that from the script.

Written by Jonathan Daly, directed by Tom Quinn, set by A. Clark Duncan, costumes by Nancy McClain, lighting and sound by Brian S. Weis. Presented by Montgomery Theater.

The cast: Marc Weil (Boney Kern), Jean Brooks (Alice Hale), Sarah Kiefer (Julie), Brian Hinkle (Arthur).

Playing at Montgomery Theater, 124 Main St., Souderton, through March 10. Tickets: $16 to $24. Information: 215-723-9984 or www.montgomerytheater.org.

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