Life is kind of beautiful…

So let this Kaufman and Hart comedy entertain you at the Sierra Madre Playhouse. The hilarious Depression Era play, You Can´t Take It With You, hits a lot of familiar notes as the story unfolds. Directed by Sheldon Bull, with a marvelous set designed by the incomparable David Calhoun, the play will tickle your funny bone and make you think about what is really important in life.

Alice Sycamore (Christina Diaz) has a wacky family. She loves them dearly, but they need some getting used to. First there is her mother, Penny (Linda DeMetrick), a budding playwright, artist, and just about anything else that catches her fancy. She started writing her sexy plays when a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to her house.

Alice´s father, Paul (Phil Apoian), makes fireworks in the basement along with his assistant, Mr. DePinna (Michael-Anthony Nozzi), a delivery man who came by one day and never left. And Alice´s sister, Essie (Betsy Reisz), is a dancer in serious need of dancing lessons, provided by Russian dance instructor, Mr. Kolenkhov (A.J. Russell) who honestly says Essie "stinks." Kolenkhov has befriended a Russian duchess (Dale Waddington Horowitz) who is working as a waitress now that the revolution has kicked her out of her country.

Essie´s husband, Ed (Teddy Goldsmith), plays the accordion and delivers the homemade candy Essie makes in their kitchen. He also likes to put little sayings in each box of candy. His latest clips have come from a book by Trotsky with bon mots like: "God is the state and the state is God." And their comical maid, Rheba (Shamarrah E. Pates), a has a boyfriend, Donald (James Fowler), who is on relief and who mentions he can´t do too much work ´cause the government wouldn´t like it.

Last is Grandpa (Stan Kelly), an eccentric old guy who walked away from his job thirty-five years earlier because it just didn´t make him happy. He thinks everybody should do only what they want to.

Well, Alice wants her new boyfriend, who is also her boss at work, Tony Kirby (Justin Okin), to meet the family, but only in small doses. The day he is to pick her up for a date, the family tries to be on their best behavior. Only thing is, when a man comes to the door and is introduced to everybody, he turns out to be an IRS man (Steve Holland), come to confront Grandpa about not having paid income tax for the past thirty-five years. That´s one of the things Grandpa doesn´t want to do. He says he doesn´t think giving money away when he doesn´t know what it will be used for is such a good idea. He wants to make sure it will be used for something sensible. The tax man blusters that Grandpa has to pay up no matter what is done with the money. No amount of arguing can convince Grandpa, but the sight of his pet snakes scares off the tax guy...for a while.

The next knock on the door is the boyfriend, Tony. He meets the funny family with all their eccentricities, and likes them. Alice is still dubious, but after their date and their duel expression of mutual love, they agree to introduce the prospective in-laws to each other.

Trouble comes when Tony and his well-to-do parents come on the wrong day and see the family at its nuttiest, along with a tipsy actress, Gay Wellington (Jodi Harrison), who is there to help Penny with one of her steamy plays. Mr. DePinna is in a toga so that Penny can finish her portrait of him, and Alice´s father is in the basement cooking up more fireworks for the Fourth of July. In come Tony and his parents (Richard Large and Dale Waddington Horowitz in a duel role) who are stunned by all the goings on. The buttoned-up Wall Street father and prim mother are aghast at the uninhibited Sycamore family.

When the hurried up dinner of frankfurters falls through, Penny has them play a word association game. Mr. Kirby´s answers are ultra conservative, but Mrs. Kirby reveals a bit of herself like when she linked "sex" to "Wall Street." Her explanation is that during the former, her husband yells out the latter. Oops.

That busts up the party, but not before Alice decides this marriage thing won´t work. Her pessimism is as bad as Tony´s parents´ view of life. But Tony isn´t ready to give up. He likes her family and loves her. Then the government men who had been following Ed with his seditious sayings in the candy boxes busts through the door and the fireworks in the basement blow up.

Everybody is arrested for sedition, but you know it won´t end there. After all, the fireworks in the basement were to celebrate our past revolution, not start a new one. The play is a hoot and it really makes you weigh your priorities. One should be to go see more plays.

The play runs through June 6, 2009, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, CA 91024. Abundant free parking behind theater.

ADMISSION: $20. Seniors (65+) and students (13-17), $17. Children 12 and under, $12.

RESERVATIONS: (626) 355-4318.

ONLINE TICKETING: www.sierramadreplayhouse.org