Like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” “Sabrina Fair” provides a window into the lives of the insufferable rich of Long Island, N.Y. Here, brought closely into focus on the stage of the Bellevue Little Theatre, are the painfully meaningless existences of the securely rich. They sail, they lunch, they entertain, they carouse and they dress for dinner. It feels, like “Gatsby,” as though we are peering into the culture of the pre-crash 1920s, though we eventually learn the play is set in the 1950s.
Things don’t change much, then, in this culture of privilege.
Will Muller, playing the leading role of Linus Larrabbee Jr., portrays the supercilious older son with a preciseness guaranteed to nauseate. His demeanor is smug and is complemented by an air of wisdom that is really little more than the superior assumptions of his set. As rich men may, he lectures his love interest on the ultimate unimportance of money and sings the praises of the unmarried state even as he slips inevitably into its grasp.
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This is a serious play. It bills itself as a romantic comedy, and it certainly has plenty of comic moments, largely supplied here by Phyllis Bonds who reprises the worldly wise Dutch aunt she portrayed in last November’s “The Dixie Swim Club.”
And Mary Trecek, playing the title role of Sabrina Fairchild, is full of the ebullience of youth, delivering a performance that reminds us why young men fall in love with the sheer life force and gaiety that is the special province of young women.
But it is, ultimately, a serious play about the importance of companionship and the yearning for it that eventually conquers even the proudest soul. This is not, for all its identity as a comedy, one of the many hilarious farces the BLT has presented over the decades. The wit is dry and clever, the characters portrayed at just the right velocity. There are no mistaken identities, no slamming doors, no oblivious husbands.
There are, however, lengthy discussions about the pursuit of riches, the benefits (or not) of the solitary life, the need to identify and seize the main chance, and the occasional obligation to flout convention.
The dictates of class appear in this play courtesy of the awkward fact that Linus, along with his younger brother, David, played by Dan Whitehouse, are both wooing Sabrina, who is the daughter of their father’s chauffeur. The resolution of this little class-based dilemma is fairly integral to the play, so I will say only that it is fine testimony to the social mobility of Americans.
Like most productions at the BLT, “Sabrina Fair” stands out not just for the play itself but also for some memorable performances.
Paul Schneider, playing the senior Linus Larrabbee, to whose lifelong entrepreneurship his lucky sons owe their fortunes, is wonderfully eccentric, obsessed with funerals and the social standing his long labor has won. Larry Wroten, making his debut performance at the BLT, is endearing as Sabrina’s humble, book-loving chauffeur father, and persuasive during the denouement when he gets to assert himself more forcefully.
“Sabrina Fair,” with its cast of 14 actors, is well worth a visit.
But be prepared to ponder some profound human urges and emotions, the dilemmas of which will be laid before you by an amusing though intensely well-rehearsed cast.