THE immigrant Jewish family at the heart of Sylvia Regan’s rarely seen 1940 play “Morning Star” certainly goes through more than its share of tsuris.
From the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire through World War I and on to the Great Depression, events conspire against the happiness of the Feldermans, including widowed matriarch Becky (Susan Greenhill) and her three daughters (Darcy Yellin, Caroline Tamas, Lena Kaminsky).
So why, during the drama so lovingly revived by the Peccadillo Theater Company, was I so fascinated by the coat rack?
The play’s dozen or so characters are constantly emerging through the front door, placing their coats, hats and assorted other paraphernalia on the hooks and shelf next to it. This procession of well-chosen vintage clothing is the most compelling aspect of this earnest production.
The play itself is part of the problem. A close relation to such works as Clifford Odets’ “Awake and Sing,” it has a forced, melodramatic quality, as evidenced by the aforementioned epochal events, that makes it as much as an ordeal for the audience as for its beleaguered characters.
Not helping matters are the cramped environs of this tiny theater, in which the audience practically seems to have moved into the Broome Street tenement apartment that is its setting.
The characters, too, have an overly familiar stock quality, as exemplified by the frequent clashes between the boarder (Steve Sterner) who personifies American capitalism and the impassioned elderly Marxist (Peter J. Coriaty) who rails against societal injustice.
Director Dan Wackerman, coming off last season’s highly successful production of “Room Service,” clearly has a strong affection and feel for these vintage plays. His work here can’t be faulted, and he has elicited good work from the performers, who manage to convey a truthful feel for the period, even if the play’s inherent melodrama makes “Morning Star” more of a wearisome than moving experience.
MORNING STARBank Street Theatre, 155 Bank St.; (212) 868-4444. Through July 28.