'Dr. Cook's Garden': Under the Surface, It's Pretty Mushy

The American Century Theater frequently functions as a rummage store, sifting through the attic of recent history and peddling the leftovers by notable writers. By design, this is not a hit-making mission, so it can be a little like stumbling across something intriguing but not really good on an oldie cable channel.

The curio on view just now in the small Gunston Arts Center is "Dr. Cook's Garden," an ethical thriller by Ira Levin that plainly foreshadows two of his later successes, "The Stepford Wives" and "Deathtrap." ("Rosemary's Baby" was already a bestseller for Levin when "Dr. Cook" became a one-week Broadway flop in 1967.)

As in "The Stepford Wives," things are just a tad too orderly in the peaceful little Vermont town where a young doctor named Jim arrives back home for a sentimental visit. And like "Deathtrap," the plot proceeds via long stretches of high-minded conversation until two extremely close colleagues -- Jim and his mentor, the avuncular Doc Cook -- wind up alone in an unlikely life-and-death struggle.

The American Century staging has throwback simplicity. Designer Trena Weiss-Null has built an inexpensive set that gets the office details right, from drab wallpaper to lollipops in the candy jar, and the actors look and sound as kindly as small-town, mid-century Americans possibly can. Everybody seems to know everyone else in Greenfield -- the population is 1,444, with a baby due soon -- and the atmosphere is all smiles and affection.

It's unnaturally perfect, of course, though not as mechanically creepy as Levin's Stepford, and for a while, Ellen Dempsey's pleasant (if slightly wooden) production keeps you guessing about just what lurks beneath the placid surface. But Levin lets the cat out of the bag at the end of Act 1 (the first of three), and once the good Dr. Cook's dirty secret is out, it's tough for Dempsey and the actors to wring much more suspense out of the piece.

The play seems to have real possibilities as camp, though; where else can you go with earnest moral dialogue that spirals up into a zany, half-drugged chase through the office? (That scene wants the accompaniment of a frenzied orchestra, but Dempsey chooses to let the actors create all the mayhem themselves.)

J.B. Bissex gives a no-nonsense performance as the sympathetic young Jim, who everyone hopes will take old Dr. Cook's place instead of taking a job in a big Chicago hospital, yet the character gets snagged in a sober eddy of high dudgeon as he calls his mentor's morals into question.

The order-obsessed Dr. Cook, on the other hand, is like a wan Dr. Evil in David Schmidt's cooing, smirking turn. Levin wrote Dr. Cook as an addled grandpa with a screw loose, but Dempsey and Schmidt can't figure out how to make this figure either plausible or irresistibly weird.

As the show staggers toward its mushy finish, you'd rather have the latter -- something crazy and flamboyant to chase away the feeling that you've learned more about Ira Levin than you really need to know.

Dr. Cook's Garden, by Ira Levin. Directed by Ellen Dempsey. Lighting designer, AnnMarie Castrigno; costumes, Rip Claassen. With Kathryn Cocroft, Carol McCaffrey and Robert Lavery. Through Oct. 4 at the Gunston Arts Center, 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington. Call 703-998-4555 or visit http://www.americancentury.org.