The MET’s Ballyhoo feels too gentle

Two milestones mark the opening of Alfred Uhry’s The Last Night of Ballyhoo: the beginning of World War II and the premiere of Gone With the Wind. That the latter ultimately has more bearing on the plot tells you a little about Uhry and a lot about the family at the heart of his play.

Uhry’s contemporary comedy follows the Freitags, a well-heeled Jewish family living in Atlanta in 1939. The Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre production, directed by Karen Paisley, seethes with unspoken tension between Adolph Freitag (Scott Cox), the easygoing owner of the Dixie Bedding Co., and his widowed sister, Boo (Licia Watson), an ambitious social climber who’d rather run the company than the house.

Other characters strain the pair’s relationship (and living space). Adolph can barely conceal his distaste for Boo’s daughter, Lala (Brie Henderson), a flighty would-be debutante with the grace and poise of a vertigo-afflicted goose. He prefers his niece Sunny (Grey Erin Renee), a self-assured Wellesley student, and his sister-in-law, Reba (Danelle Drury), a gentle, if simple, presence in the home.

When Joe Farkas, a hunky new Dixie Bedding hire, comes for dinner, Lala pounces. Ballyhoo (the Jewish answer to Southern Christmas cotillions) is approaching, and she’s desperate for a date. But Joe has designs on Sunny instead, and jealousy — between Boo and Adolph as well as between Lala and Sunny — makes the family’s Hanukkah bush shine a little less bright.

MET’s cast waffles between realism and burlesque, with their accents divided along similar lines. Henderson is alternately buoyant and belligerent as Lala, the “Scarlett O’Goldberg” (in her uncle’s words) of Atlanta. Cox charms as the lovable Adolph, eyebrows waggling in time with every punch line. As Boo, Watson furiously channels the disappointment and coal-fired drive of a woman who has pinned her aspirations on a daughter adrift.

Drury delivers a fine, subtle performance as Reba, scoring big laughs without overplaying Reba’s guileless literalism. Kyle Dyck brings similar nuance to Joe, a Brooklyn boy with scant patience for classism and self-censure. And Renee lends Sunny grace and quiet confidence, though her accent occasionally falters.

Michael Ott is gleefully punchable as Peachy Weil, a foppish bachelor from a prominent New Orleans family. Although Ballyhoo steeps in romantic-comedy tropes, the play’s toothiest conflict stems from a confrontation between Peachy and Joe. Though a caricature, Peachy stands for one side of an intra-ethnic battle between German Jews (the Freitags) and “the other kind”: Eastern Europeans like Joe, who are none too happy about the ways upper-class Jews elide heritage to fit in.

The Freitags’ fussy home becomes a symbolic boxing ring for competing ideologies. Paisley provides ample sparring space with a panoramic box set, replete with wide angles and cozy nooks. Erica Sword’s costumes highlight class and character differences, from Boo’s well-tailored, neutral dresses to Lala’s layer-cake ball gown. Matthew McAndrews’ lights add ample texture, though a few late-scene cues clash with the production’s overall style.

Even with World War II hovering in the background, The Last Night of Ballyhoo is lighthearted fare. In Uhry’s South (he also wrote Driving Miss Daisy), conflicts are resolved with magnanimity; there’s little that can’t be brushed aside with a quip or fixed with a wink.

But there’s something nevertheless disquieting about the ease with which the characters — Joe excluded — divorce themselves from the fighting abroad. This is no accident. At times, Uhry seems poised to make a piercing critique. When Joe leaves the Freitag home, Boo barks to Adolph, “That kike you hired has no manners!” But her hypocrisy is positioned as a curtain line, and we barely feel its weight before Uhry misdirects with his next comedic cartwheel.

As a result, Ballyhoo feels toothless as a comedy of manners, its commentary too soft-spoken. MET’s production is entertaining and well-acted, but I couldn’t help but feel, as I left the theater, that I’d been served the theatrical equivalent of a ketchup-heavy meatloaf. Comforting and sweetly glazed, with little to challenge the palate.