Kathleen Turner, Jonathan Walker and Charles Busch
(Photo credit: Joan Marcus)

Charles Busch may be a master at parodying old Hollywood B-movies, but in his new comedy, The Third Story, he proves he has not learned their lesson: you can’t tell too many stories at once. Lady gangster flicks, Russian fairy tales, B-movie sci-fi, the search for Commies in Hollywood, Hollywood’s Golden Age, mother-son dramas, all have their plot strands in The Third Story. It is not The Third Story Busch is telling but four, five or six stories at the same time. Even with such veteran performers as Kathleen Turner and Busch heading an accomplished cast, this new play seems to be all over the map.

In the past, Busch has been extremely precise in parodying one genre at a time such as Grande Dame Guignol in Die Mommie Die!, or teenage beach comedies in Psycho Beach Party, for instance. Here, however, he takes on too many plots simultaneously and the results are scattershot. Not only does he not do justice to any of them, but his targets are superficially skewered. With four members of the cast each playing two characters and the other two actors playing people with split personalities, there isn’t much time for character development or continuity. Director Carl Andress has worked with Busch many times including the New York productions of Die Mommy Die! and Shanghai Moon. However, here he has been unable to bring some coherence to the play’s many story lines.

The title refers to the belief that after two false starts in writing, it is often the third story that takes off. Turner plays Peg, an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, who has followed her son Drew to Omaha, hoping to get him to return and help her through her writer’s block by collaborating on an original script. Drew has chosen to give up screenwriting after five years and join his father, one of Peg’s many ex-husbands, as a mailman. It is 1949 and Peg is also expecting to be investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee for petitions she may have signed during the Spanish Civil War.

Peg begins to spin a tale of Queenie Bartlett, “the undisputed first lady of crime”, always dressed in the latest Paris fashions, and her gangster son Steve. As we watch, the role of Queenie is played by Busch and Drew takes on the role of Steve, who, just as in real life, has a girl friend his mother doesn’t like. This first story becomes joined with a second story of Dr. Constance Hudson, a lady scientist who has found the formula for cloning people. Here Turner plays Dr. Rutenspitz, an older colleague. This story joins the first when the dying Queenie offers to bankroll the doctor’s research. A third unrelated story which parallels Peg and Drew’s relationship is a Russian fairy tale that Peg used to tell her son when he was a child. In this story an old crone, Baba Yaga, played in a white fright wig by Busch, attempts to help the socially inept Princess Vasalisa obtain her true love.

The Third Story seesaws back and forth between the mob/science fiction melodrama, the Russian fairy tale, and Peg and Drew’s wrangling in his Omaha house. Busch has chosen too many targets and the pieces never really come together. It isn’t hard to follow; it is just exhausting. The roles are underwritten which forces the actors to fall back on clichés and stereotypes. At various times, Busch seems to be channeling Joan Crawford, Judith Anderson or Gale Sondergaard. Jonathan Walker as Drew and Steve has taken light comedian Robert Cummings as his model. If Jennifer Van Dyck’s Dr. Constance suggests Ingrid Bergman, it is not very surprising as Bergman played a lady doctor named Constance in the Hitchcock film noir, Spellbound.

As the fast-talking lady gangster, Busch plays a role that he has patented many times before, but here he seems to be resting on his laurels, rather than adding anything new to the characterization. Turner has the most underwritten role as the hard-drinking wise-cracking Hollywood scribe. She falls back on the old trick of tossing off her one-liners in an off-hand manner. However, the lines aren’t really clever enough to sustain this. A Busch/Turner verbal duel would have been something to see, but unfortunately they share very little stage time and have no big scenes together, more’s the pity. Sarah Rafferty successfully captures the stereotypes of the gangster’s moll and the fairy tale princess. Scott Parkinson is amusing as Zygote, the Frankenstein-like monster created by Dr. Hudson in a test tube.

The best element of the production team is the 1940’s costumes by Gregory Gale. As usual for a Charles Busch play, and particularly here, where several of the performers play two roles each, the hair and wig design by Tom Watson is a major element in recreating the period. David Gallo’s suitably shabby set suggests film noir, but the lighting by David Weiner does not enhance this quality. The original music by Lewis Flinn has the right sound for the story line.

Charles Busch’s The Third Story is an interesting attempt to satirize Hollywood’s B-movies. Unfortunately, the results are an untidy jumble of too many undigested ideas. As directed by Carl Andress, the play’s separate story lines do not each have a style of their own. Kathleen Turner and Busch have given wonderful comic performances previously, but here they are restrained by underwritten roles and mild, unfocused parody.

The Third Story (through March 15)

MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-279-4200 or http://www.ticketcentral.com