When I first heard the title
Oscar and the Pink Lady, I hoped I might see a new comedy about Oscar Wilde and a colorful cocktail. Unfortunately that's not what Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's overlong play, now receiving its U.S. premiere at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre's Cassius Carter Centre Stage, is about. Instead this one-person multi-character piece, set in a children's ward of a hospital, is a syrupy-sweet meditation on life and death, the innocence of children, and one's belief in God. Moreover, Frank Dunlop's syrupy direction further oversweetens this light confection.

Fortunately, the one saving grace of this production is the chance to see theatrical legend Rosemary Harris up close. [...]