STAGE REVIEW : ‘Veronica’s Room’: Condemned but Livable : Adequate directing and enthusiastic acting can’t overcome the Eastern Boys production at the Ensemble Theatre.

ORANGE —  “Veronica’s Room,” a potboiler that is both overcooked and half-baked, seems to have found a secure niche in the life of Orange County’s non-professional theater world. The Eastern Boys production now at the Ensemble Theatre is the third local offering of this 1973 thriller during the past two seasons alone.

Why this is so probably has more to do with the fame of the playwright, Ira Levin, who is better known for “Deathtrap,” than with any intrinsic merits of the play--although it must be admitted that “Veronica’s Room” allows actors the luxury of practicing an Irish brogue, doubling in different roles and, for the more histrionically inclined, chewing the scenery without having to worry about violating the spirit of the work.

Director Michael Stanley Weiss and three of the four actors in the current production apparently have a special fondness for “Veronica’s Room,” having done it at the Actors Playbox Theatre at Golden West College in Huntington Beach.

Anyone so disposed, however, may be showing signs of brain damage. At the very least, there is a possibility that their collective mental health has been undermined by repeated playing of the demented second act, which involves murder-by-suffocation (definitely risking prolonged oxygen deprivation) along with incest, necrophilia and other loony tunes.

Ironically, the schizoid payoff of the second act is just about all the entertainment “Veronica’s Room” has to offer. Until then we get a maundering first act about a pair of elderly housekeepers in a Victorian house near Boston who persuade a young woman they’ve met earlier that evening to impersonate the long-dead Veronica for some rather implausible reasons.

The tameness of the setup is obviously meant to contrast with the maniacal payoff. But the first half of the play is so puerile and drifts along so aimlessly that it barely holds enough interest to get us to the intermission. Fortunately, the first act lasts less than 40 minutes.

Weiss’s direction is adequate, correctly avoiding the temptation to play the second act as a piece of camp. All four actors are enthusiastic, if rough around the edges. The set and costume designers, clearly operating on a shoestring, lend serviceable detail to the 1935 period setting.

‘Veronica’s Room’

An Ensemble Theatre presentation of an Eastern Boys production of Ira Levin’s play. Directed by Michael Stanley Weiss. With Sara St. James, Debbie Caceres-Gerber, Eric Hansen and David Frederick Fogg. Set by Ellwood Smith. Costumes by Stephanie Fox and Betsey Potter. Makeup by Carla Roseto Fabrizi. Hair styling by Annette Fabrizi. Sound and lighting by Marcus E. Blankenship. Performances Thursday to Saturday at 8:30 p.m. at the Ensemble Theatre, Olive Heights Center, 844 E. Lincoln Ave., Orange. $15; two for $25. (714) 998-2199.