This 'Affair' is over

SAN DIEGO -- To call "A Catered Affair," the new musical drama based on a tired old Paddy Chayefsky teleplay, a period piece would be an understatement. The show, which had its world premiere Sunday at the Old Globe, is an invitation to slip into a time warp -- a rackety Bronx time warp, circa 1953, that's complete with busybody neighbors in housedresses and kerchiefs who are forever cupping their ears to the kitchen arguments spilling into the tenement courtyard below.

Would somebody please get these yentas on the rotary phone and remind them that it's not so nice to take pleasure in the melodramatic squabbles of family members doing what they always do in Chayefsky -- figuring out how to love one another without killing each other first.

The book, adapted by Harvey Fierstein, who also plays Winston, the newly conceived gay uncle character, recycles a property whose main appeal is its dated charm. The hoary plot, which some might recall from the 1956 movie remake starring Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine and Debbie Reynolds, revolves around a family's mushrooming wedding plans for Janey (Leslie Kritzer), an independent young woman who'd rather get married at city hall and race off to a California honeymoon than deal with all the hullabaloo.

Idle philosophical question: Should we really be trawling for such mediocre source material without a sharp revitalizing vision? Chayefsky's expiration date passed long ago, yet Fierstein serves up the saga as though it were fresh milk. But let's return to the show without further ado -- this is a story line that's peculiarly vulnerable to being switched off during commercial breaks.

Janey's mother, Aggie (the marvelous Faith Prince), insists on having a big catered affair. She's both grief-stricken over the loss of her son, who was recently killed in the Korean War, and guilt-ridden over a daughter she has up to now treated like chopped liver. Plus she needs a break from the daily reminders of just how unromantic her life has been with her cabbie husband, Tom (Tom Wopat), who thinks the money they received for their son's death should be invested in a taxi medallion and not some elaborate spread for freeloading relatives.