Cocktail Time, City Lit Theater Company. Because City Lit has run out of good Jeeves and Bertie stories to adapt, it’s now in its second season of mining the rest, if not the best, of P.G. Wodehouse, specifically the Uncle Fred books, which are less rollicking and farcical but equally packed with dotty Brits and droll narration. Cocktail Time recounts an intricate tale of the affable “fifth earl of good old Ickenham,” a childlike prankster who manages to help two nephews contend with the usual Wodehouse crises: imminent scandal and frustrated romance. The result recalls those plate-twirling acts where the question is whether they can all be kept spinning. Regrettably, a few plates crash under the weight of Page Hearn’s ardent adaptation. You can read the novel in several sittings, but at 150 minutes, this dramatization is a bit too faithful.
