‘George and Gracie’ A Time Capsule Of Hokey, Big Laughs

“American Cornball” is a wonderful book by Christopher Miller, first published in 2014 and now in paperback. Subtitled “A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny,” it purports to be a “guide to the things that used to make America laugh.”

“George and Gracie,” at Seven Angels Theatre through March 5, might as well be called “American Cornball Live.” Its scenes, drawn from episodes of TV’s “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,” ably illuminate chapters in Millers book on Brainy Girls, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Eggheads, Henpecked Husbands, Hypnotism, Marriage, Men’s Hats, Milquetoasts, Mothers-in-Law, Neighbors, Newspapers at Breakfast and Secretaries.

This stuff may be hokey and literally old-hat — in one bit, a hapless salesman’s fedora gets squashed repeatedly by his own encyclopedia. But to see these routines performed live, 60 or more years after they were written, is to see them in a whole different light.

Burns and Allen ostensibly played themselves, except that Allen was the living embodiment of dizzy, dumb wife jokes and George was her self-conscious, over-reacting straight man. In a TV scene borrowed for “George & Gracie: The Early Years,” a journalist remarks that “she never breaks character,” as if Allen’s whole life was a comedy act. Burns regularly comments on her admiringly as his meal ticket, “the whole act” and brands himself as a talentless hanger-on.

This self-conscious self-mockery permeates the routines that Seven Angels’ Artistic Director Semina De Laurentis has picked for the show. De Laurentis also plays Gracie Allen. The actress is so well known at this theater that she not only captures the Gracie Allen style, she captures the idea of a familiar, real-life, down-to-earth woman smiling her way through comedy sketches.

As George Burns, R. Bruce Connelly opens the show with a monologue about the refined art of reacting to Gracie’s absurd comments. Most of the second act is taken over by a routine that takes the Gracie character to illogical extremes, when a hypnotist convinces her that instead of a sweet simpleton she is an Einstein-level genius. This leads to such iconic 1950s images as a quiz show isolation booth and the supposedly emasculating sight of a man wearing an apron.

The sketches are fully staged, with a supporting cast of six, among them Waterbury radio personality Tom Chute as announcer Harry von Zell, tirelessly hawking Maxwell House Coffee and Carnation Evaporated Milk. This leads Gracie to wonder how anybody would be able to milk all those carnations.

While watching these re-creations of mid-20th-century mirth, I realized that these routines aired around the same time that Samuel Beckett wrote “Endgame,” the avant-garde classic that the Long Wharf Theatre staged so successfully last month. “Endgame” has its moments of well-timed hilarity based on marital struggles, blissful ignorance and supreme overconfidence.

“The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” likewise had its experimental side: Burns would introduce the shows with monologues, then enter his own living room as if it were a theater set on a proscenium stage. Some of the gags even sound oddball and existential: “My, it’s beautiful out…,” Gracie exclaims, “…but where else would it be?”

“George and Gracie: The Early Years” is more than a night of easy, big laughs. It’s a time capsule, a textbook, a tribute to one of the great showbiz marriages, and a friendly evening with some fine local talent.

GEORGE AND GRACIE: THE EARLY YEARS runs through March 5 at Seven Angels Theatre, Hamilton Park Pavilion, 1 Plank Road, Waterbury. The show is a benefit for the Seven Angels HALO Awards ceremonies, which honors high school theater in Connecticut. Tickets are $39.50 to $41. 203-757-4676, sevenangelstheatre.org.