Donna, of the new dramedy “Harbor,” gabs like one of the cool kids. She tosses off insults as if they were cute and endearing, and pleads, “Come on, don’t be a biatch.”
Except Donna’s neither cool nor a kid — she’s a petulant single mother, and she’s talking to her 15-year-old daughter, Lottie.
“She thinks I’m dope,” Donna announces.
“No, I don’t,” the teen shoots back. “I think you’re a moron.”
Donna’s trying too hard, and so is playwright Chad Beguelin. The book writer/lyricist for “The Wedding Singer” and “Elf” seems to be trying to make up for the lack of music here with pseudo-hip glibness. At least at first — this is the rare show that improves after intermission.
Donna (Erin Cummings) and Lottie (Alexis Molnar) have been living hand-to-mouth in their van. Mom being pregnant again, they’re desperate and have looked up Donna’s brother Kevin after years apart.
The girls are in for a change of pace: Kevin (Randy Harrison, from “Queer as Folk”) and his architect husband, Ted (Paul Anthony Stewart), have a picture-perfect house in tiny Sag Harbor. They live the yuppie dream of tan khakis and bright polo shirts, with spiked coffee for an afternoon pick-me-up.
In the first act, Beguelin goes for cheap shots as he milks the differences between the two pairs of characters. It’s especially rich to hear a spoiled, entitled gay man like Ted rant about spoiled, entitled mothers.
Under Mark Lamos’ direction, the actors also look stiff, as if unsure how to deliver the arch dialogue.
But just as you think that the straight/gay clash is dead in the water, Beguelin changes course. Act II focuses on the more interesting divide between those who behave like adults and those who are stuck in perpetual adolescence.
Though Ted claims not to like children, he unexpectedly bonds with Lottie, who reads Edith Wharton for kicks.
Meanwhile, Donna and Kevin realize they’re more alike than they ever thought — they claim to be a singer and a writer, respectively, but those dreamers haven’t actually accomplished anything.
When “Harbor” stops trying to be Noël Coward in the Hamptons, it offers a flawed but interesting look at what it means to make tough decisions. By the end, the show has almost grown up, too.