Max, a vaudevillian comic, thinks he’s a funny guy. But his routine is falling short of keeping the audience in stitches. When he sees Maxie, a dancer, he sees the chance to not only develop a new show but to fall in love. Max and Maxie do the circuit, staying in fleabag dives and literally dancing for their dinners. But when Max becomes a headliner, Maxie is out. The stars Max once had in his eyes for her are now shining for him alone. As a result, Maxie loses her career and eventually her mind.

That’s the haunting backdrop to the Northern Lights Theatre production of James McLure’s odd play “Max and Maxie,” which was performed last weekend in Brooks and will be reprised locally Sept. 20-22 at Brewer Middle School. Based on the actual life of actor Bert Lahr, “Max and Maxie,” directed for Northern Lights by Elaine DiFalco Daugherty, is about the guilt and remorse that sometimes can accompany the late days of stardom.

And now that Max is in his late days, he is troubled by memories – as well as the fact that he can’t seem to remember the lines for an upcoming performance of “Waiting for Godot.” A young actor shows up at the rehearsal hall to help Max go over his part, and the two spend most of the show reminiscing about Max’s rise to the top and the carnage he left behind in his domestic life.

Given that the play is based on the theater of quick-witted comebacks and barbed responses, the production at Brooks moved antithetically slow and the cast still was grappling to find the right lines and moves. If you can overlook those technical gaffes, as well as a script that overendows the lead role, then there are some poignant moments about “life and death and everything and nothing.” However, unlike “Godot,”

which is significantly quoted both in the script and the look of this play, “Max and Maxie” has a tad too much “nothing” at its heart. Max is not a likeable guy and spending a purgatorial evening with him can be unforgiving at times.

But here’s what offers some salvation: Kent McKusick as Max. McKusick captures the bitterness and anxiety of a man struck and shamed by an unflattering image of himself in life’s mirror. He snaps at his young assistant, played gingerly by Nick Cyr, and twinkles tenderly when Maxie, long ago lost to him, tap-dances her way back into his thoughts. McKusick can’t make Max more appealing. Who could? But he gives him fair representation and artistic solidity.

Surya Mitchell is very appealing as the wisecracking Maxie. She never quite makes it clear that Maxie has, indeed, spiraled into mental illness, but she does infuse her with tremendous sadness in the end, and that’s enough to convey a powerful sense of abandonment.

Perhaps by the time “Max and Maxie” reaches Brewer later this month, it will have developed the spunk it needs to really sing. It’s the pacing that’s off, and like the timing of a punch line, it has to have the kind of thing Max would know about: pizzazz.

Northern Lights Theatre will present “Max and Maxie” 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, and Saturday, Sept. 21, and 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22, at Brewer Middle School on Somerset Street. For information, call 990-2518.