THE TALE OF THE ALLERGIST'S WIFE, Utah Contemporary Theatre, Rose Wagner Center, through June 8 (355-2787). Running time: 2 hours (one intermission).
The new Utah Contemporary Theatre company is off to an auspicious start with the regional premiere of one of the most acclaimed Broadway comedies in recent years, "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife."
Charles Busch's tightly written (and wickedly funny) script is in good hands.
Kirstie Gulick Rosenfield (who, with Kurt Proctor, is cofounder of UCT), has a cast of mostly familiar Salt Lake players.
Kathryn Atwood is Marjorie Taub, the Wife. Her children have left home (one is a successful real estate agent, married to a rabbi and living in Israel; the other is promoting holistic medicine in Oregon . . . after a year on a feminist avocado farm).
Emotionally, Marjorie's at her wits' end, afraid to venture out after a recent diatribe in a Disney Store ended with several things broken — from expensive figurines . . . to her own spirit. Marjorie graduated with a degree in business, but she bemoans not concentrating on philosophy instead.
The title's allergist is her husband, Ira, who has retired from a successful practice to devote virtually all of his time and energy to operate a clinic for the homeless. Richard Scott is well cast in the role.
Down the hall from the Taubs' Riverside Drive apartment is Marjorie's bowel-obsessed mother, Frieda, who continually gets into a tug-of-war over who is more miserable — she or her daughter. Most of the time it's a toss-up.
Joan Mullaney really nails this role — a crotchety old woman who's not afraid to speak her mind (with a few choice expletives tossed in).
The comedy (and the household stress) kicks into high gear with the surprise arrival of one of Marjorie's childhood friends — Lee Green, formerly known as Lillian Greenblatt — played to the hilt by Michelle Peterson. Lee is flamboyant, pushy and seems to have led a fabulous, globe-trotting life.
Marjorie is instantly jealous — and fascinated.
If you don't believe Lee has been everywhere and done everything, just listen to all the "names" she keeps dropping — those days past when she would have Andy Warhol over for a bowl of soup (out of a Campbell's can is left unsaid) . . . marching through the South side-by-side with Martin Luther King . . . Ira's humor reminds her of one of her old, now deceased, friend — Lenny Bruce.
But Ira and his mother-in-law don't like what they see — or don't see. Is Lee real? Is she just a figment of Marjorie's overtaxed and overwhelmed imagination? Or is she the contemporary version of "The Man Who Came to Dinner"?
One constant in Marjorie's life is Mohammed, the apartment complex's jack-of-all-trades doorman — nicely played by Cory Castillo.
While Marjorie laments that she's "a cage in search of a bird," Lee comes along and cuts her loose. For a while, it's devastating.
The normally campy and over-the-top Busch has written a script that it savvy, sophisticated, insightful and very funny.
Sensitivity rating: Quite a bit of "adult" language and a smidgen of graphic sexual activity.
E-MAIL: ivan@desnews.com