How would you like to be trapped in a room with your first wife, your current wife, and the girlfriend neither of them knows about? That’s the dilemma faced by a comatose Thomas Axelrod in Lee Redmond’s Can’t Live Without ‘Em, an amusing World Premiere two-hour sitcom now playing upstairs at the Group Rep that I just might have enjoyed even more without its central conceit.

Unbeknownst to Wife #1 Maureen (Cynthia Payo), Wife #2 Sharon (Daisy Staedler), and Girlfriend Chrissy (understudy Heidi Seidcheck), Thomas (Bert Emmett) not only knows full well what’s being said and done inside his hospital room, we in the audience can see and hear him moving about and commenting on what he observes.

Conversation between Thomas’s two wives reveals how Thomas went from high school teacher to the author of three best sellers thanks as much to the efforts of his literary agent second wife as to a talent that apparently lay dormant while married to Maureen.

What neither wife realizes, but what they’re about to find out in short order, is that Thomas has already moved on from both of them to 20something Chrissy, and that he has talked to her in detail about each of his marriages.

However, even that disturbing bit of information pales in comparison to the two wives’ shock when they learn that Chrissy is expecting Thomas’s first child. (He may have tested sterile during his marriage to Sharon, but that was before getting “kicked in the nuts” by Maureen while “working out dance moves for his newest novel, Pointed Boots.”)

The stage is thus set for a three-way tug of war over a man whose horndog ways had me wondering what two wives and a girlfriend could possibly have seen in him, or at least as played by Emmett, who’s been a favorite of mine since his Scenie-winning star turns in Lombardi and The Armadillo Necktie, but seems miscast in a role that cries out for George Clooney (or someone of that type who doesn’t demand a 10-figure salary).

Then again, the main problem with Can’t Live Without ‘Em may simply be in having Thomas’s “spirit” not only visible to us but spouting one-liners like Rodney Dangerfield throughout a play which is at its strongest when exploring the shifting dynamics between three women who begin as adversaries and end up something quite different.

As far as I’m concerned, Can’t Live Without ‘Em belongs to its trio of stellar lead actresses, who could not be more different each from the other, or more right for roles they have developed under Mareli Mitchel-Shields’ able direction.

 Payo’s Maureen may not be the brightest bulb, but she’s got a heart of gold, and long before she returns after intermission to show off the hilarious results of working with a voice coach, Payo had me smitten.

It takes longer to warm to tough-as-nails Sharon, but the terrific Staedler gives her layers and depth and glimpses of hidden warmth and vulnerability that ended up having me rooting for Sharon as much as I was for Maureen.

Last but not least, understudy Seidcheck may only have gone on as Chrissy a handful of times, but you’d never know it from her pitch-perfect turn as a woman who just may be the most evolved and grown-up of the three.

As Thomas becomes more of a bit player when You Can’t Live Without ‘Em moves post-intermission to a long-term care facility, it’s the women in his life that held my interest (as indeed they had from the start), leading me to wonder if what the Group Rep is debuting as a wacky two-act comedy might better be considered the first draft of a compelling, touching, yet still quite funny 90-minute one-act that leaves Thomas quietly comatose throughout the show.

Kelly has the requisite good looks for Doctor Payne, but the character’s unprofessional, unethical penchant for hitting on female family members and hospital staffers could use a rethink, while Jessica Kent makes for a bubbly, efficient Tammy, the practical nurse assigned to Thomas’s extended care.

Mitchel-Shields and Redmond’s set transforms effectively from Act One’s sterile hospital room to Act Two’s more hospitable long-term care setting and Frank McKown’s lighting is topnotch too. (Costumes and sound design are uncredited.)

Can’t Live Without ‘Em is produced for the Group Rep by Brent Beerman. Danny Salay understudies the role of Doctor Payne as Seidcheck does to the role usually played by Jazz Strong.

Casey Murray is assistant director and stage manager. Nora Feldman is publicist.

The changes I’ve proposed for Redmond’s play may be radical, but I can’t help wishing I could experience Can’t Live Without ‘Em minus Chatty Coma Man’s intrusive one-liners. Just three fabulous females (and a couple of featured players) would suit me just fine.

The Group Rep, Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood.
www.thegrouprep.com

–Steven Stanley
May 5, 2024
Photos: Doug Engalla

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Tags: Lee Redmond, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Group Rep