Taking an Obscure ‘New York’ Over Top

A vivid and controversial figure, the Irish-born Dion Boucicault wrote or adapted some 200 plays during his long and noteworthy career. However, despite the recent success of his “London Assurance” in New York, Boucicault’s other works have lapsed into nearly complete obscurity.

In their lighthearted but ham-handed production of Boucicault’s rusty melodrama “The Poor of New York” at Glaxa Studios, the Bedford Thompson Players demonstrate why.

Named for a winery in northern Santa Barbara County, a favorite haunt for the group, the Players evince a mellow camaraderie appropriate to their oenological origins. In fact, the mood is so mellow that one of the actresses even totes her baby onstage for her scenes. And a very good baby it is, too, fussing only minimally at the play’s crucial junctures.

Of which there are many. A nonstop cascade of scenery-chomping crises and incredible coincidences, this “sensation drama,” set in the wake of the 1857 Wall Street panic, established the lurid mode that melodramas followed for decades thereafter. But melodrama, an iffy proposition at best, requires more discipline than is evidenced by this palsy-walsy crew, whose acting styles range from moustache-twirling to half-baked naturalism. Although Alex Wright rates a few vigorous hisses as the villain, attempts to update the piece--which include projected images of financial panics past and present--seem as arbitrary as Hugh Esten’s faltering direction.

* “The Poor of New York,” Glaxa Studios, 3707 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends May 31. $10. (213) 259-0155. Running time: 2 hours.