What makes Joe DiPietro’s domestic comedies so appreciated at FST? While seeming like sitcoms, those like Clever Little Lies get both closely and funnily on the wavelengths of real people. Those who’ve lived a lot, loved, been married for much of their lives, and belong in now-called-traditional families can especially identify with similar characters who have secrets, tell lies, and avoid self-revelations to keep the peace. As Clever Little Lies opens, Billy reveals to his dad, Bill Sr. (an astonished Jon Shaver) that he wants to leave his wife. Billy (an ardent Christopher M. Smith) loves an athletic trainer he’s having an affair with. In the kind of locker-room talk detailed recently in a more important context, Billy extols their relationships and finds those with wife Jane wanting. At home, Bill Sr.’s wife Alice wheedles him into revealing their son’s affair. Alice (always determined Rita Rehn) invites Billy and Jane for socializing over cheesecake. They bring along their baby, to care for whom Jane’s left her work. It turns out she’s had a change of mind about returning. That will affect Billy’s cheating. Central to the drama is Alice’s story about an affair she had when young but married. It’s long and detailed, weaving between her passion and her concern for her husband and son. Mystery: Was the story true? In any case, what does Alice’s story mean to both of the men? Does it affect Jane with her idealization of marriage and her plans for a trip with Billy that parallels his secret plans with the other woman? So how does the evening turn out? How does knowing of the lies told by young and old in order not to hurt their spouses affect everyone concerned? How clever were those lies anyway, and how little? As usual in her direction, Kate Alexander has her actors stressing their characters’ hearts, making audiences like them. No one comes closer to perfection than Rita Rehn, for example, in presenting a meddling mother as a paragon of a caring parent. With a serious center, Bill, Alice, and Billy wander nicely into little deviations from truth, mainly humorous delights. Jane, though, seems to experience growth in truth and maturity. Scenic designers Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay have fashioned realistic locker and living rooms, appropriately lit by Michael Pasquini. Kathleen Geldard has dressed the men and their wives appropriately too. Technical elements never detract from Joe DiPietro’s story telling. His humor is of the kind Neil Simon is famous for yet it bears the younger writer’s own stamp.
