“Becky’s New Car” turns out to be a ride worth taking, especially if we suspend our disbelief long enough to embrace the notion that malice is not necessarily aforethought even though our actions might be construed to suggest otherwise.

Becky’s New Car, by Steven Dietz. Directed by Larry Coen. Scenic design by Shelley Barish. At the Lyric Stage of Boston, MA, through December 22.

Celeste Oliva and Mike Dorval in the Lyric Stage Production of “Becky’s New Car.” Photo: Mark S. Howard.

By Robert Israel

You’re in store for a mostly fun excursion four-wheeling it through the Lyric Stage’s presentation of Becky’s New Car, which is being given a spirited yet uneven production that features generous handfuls of sparkle, splashes of witty banter, a bright but hokey set, and several compelling performances.

Playwright Dietz, who hails from Colorado, wrote the play in 2008. The storyline revolves around people rooted in a culture of the automobile, enamored with the lure of the open road. It’s the same open highway that Walt Whitman sang about in his poems and Jack Kerouac took to in his rambling fictional portrayals of hipster malcontents who surrendered to the lure of the interstate, hoping it would lead them far from their domestic cares. The problem with road reveries is that the travelers remain the same people they were before they started out. At best, the road is provides temporary relief. At worst, it can be perilous.

Protagonist Becky Foster (Celeste Oliva) is a car sales person bored with her married life to Joe (Mike Dorval), a well-intentioned, affectionate but essentially dull laborer. Her unhappiness is also encouraged by her dullard adult son Chris (Alex Marz), who always seems to be mouthing platitudes gleaned from his college textbooks. In a meta-theatrical conceit reminiscent of the narrating Stage Manager in Our Town, she addresses the audience directly with her woes. She tells us that she is antsy after spending most of her claustrophobic life in tight rooms at home and at the auto showroom. She yearns to hop into one of the bright, shiny jalopies she sells and take to the open road, speeding past the road bumps and detours of her hapless life. She is a wannabe version of Kerouac’s male adventurers.

“I love my son, the fruit of my actual loins,” she confides, but a moment later she muses that a “new car equals a new life,” and this is what she craves. One friend, who has also faced this mid-life abyss, turned to acing in pornographic movies, but Becky is not attracted to so tawdry route, although she will have an extra-marital dalliance in the course of the play. She wants us to believe in her, even if she doesn’t completely believe in herself.

Celeste Oliva, a talented actress who scurries about the stage with manic energy, brings us speedily into Becky’s psyche, but sometimes works too hard to get herself – and us – to share the angst underneath the mania. Part of the problem is that she’s paired with a less than effective Mike Dorval, who plays her husband Joe: his character’s lines fall flat and there is no noticeable chemistry between the pair. As her son Chris, Alex Marz is agreeably zippy and cartoonish (he wears a tee shirt emblazoned with a likeness of Bullwinkle). When Martz and Oliva share the stage they sometimes seem to be acting beside rather than with each other — their reactions are aimed at us rather than at working out their feelings of wrath/affection between each other. Some tighter blocking by the capable direction Larry Coen would help to pull all of us – audience as well as players – into a sharper, more nuanced understanding of the interaction.

Will McGarrahan, Celeste Oliva, and Mike Dorval. in the Lyric Stage production of “Becky’s New Car.” Photo: Mark S. Howard

While Oliva shines through most of her scenes after a rough beginning, it is the gifted actor Will McGarrahan who emerges as the strongest element in this production. He gives a bravura performance as the millionaire Walter Flood, who meets Becky at the showroom and quickly falls for her: his portrait is witty, wise, and engaging. The other players – particularly the miscast Jaime Carrillo, who plays Steve, Becky’s befuddled colleague — are generally solid, though their facial expressions and timing could use a bit of a tune-up.

The second act brings all the mayhem together and that’s when most of the magic in the chassis of this play about the complexities of escape emerges. There are twists and turns along the way, the plot thickens and then thins and gets wrapped neatly into a final scene featuring our protagonist cruising down that open road, calm and resolute, her man beside her.

So Becky’s New Car turns out to be a ride worth taking, especially if we suspend our disbelief long enough to embrace the notion that malice is not necessarily aforethought even though our actions might be construed to suggest otherwise. As playwright Deitz envisions it, the world of Becky’s New Car is a place where sins are ultimately forgiven, and where the sun shines brightly on that ever-alluring open road.

Robert Israel writes about theater, travel and the arts, and is a member of Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE). He can be reached at risrael_97@yahoo.com