Bonnie Hewett and Alex Randall in The Grand Manner. Photo by Michael Paulsen

Famed playwright A.R. Gurney waxes nostalgic in The Grand Manner, revisiting an incident of his youth that helped spark his long, fruitful career. The slight yet quietly appealing comedy was seen off-Broadway earlier this year and makes its Houston debut in a committed rendition by tiny, newish Edge Theatre.

The play depicts Gurney’s boyhood meeting with legendary actress Katharine Cornell backstage when she was starring on Broadway in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra in 1948. What happened was this: They chatted briefly, and she signed his program.

In The Grand Manner, however, Gurney speculates as to what might have happened, spinning a theatrical fantasia in which impressionable prep-school lad “Pete” (Gurney’s lifelong nickname) plays a temporary yet important role in the lives of Cornell, her extravagantly gay director (and husband), Guthrie McClintic, and her loyal manager (and lover), Gert Macy.

In Gurney’s scenario, Cornell is suffering a crisis of confidence. Afraid her style of acting (the “grand manner” of the title) is passé, she’s even threatening to quit the theater altogether. Macy strives to protect Cornell’s image and feelings, while McClintic tries to enlist Pete as his latest “personal assistant.”

By the final curtain, Pete has reassured Cornell that her kind of artistry is important and will be remembered. And his extended encounter with the colorful menage has convinced Pete not only that he wants a career in the theater but also that using his writer’s imagination may be the best way to achieve it.

Hardly from Gurney’s top drawer, The Grand Manner wears its heart and shortcomings on its sleeve. It doesn’t dig deep into any of its characters. It’s a tad pat in its initial exposition and its tidy resolution. Yet after a slow start, the play proves enjoyable: smart, civilized, gently amusing and sincerely felt.

If director Jim Tommaney hasn’t achieved quite the ideal sense of period style, he has given the production a casual, friendly air and conveyed the play’s genuine affection for the theater and its people.

As the “kid” and the diva are the most crucial characters, it helps that Alex Randall’s Pete and Bonnie Hewett’s Cornell are the two strongest performances. Hewett does not dazzle with charisma — this is the star letting her hair down backstage, after all. Yet she projects class, worldliness and cool authority without ever taking herself too seriously. Randall is just about ideal as her worshipful fan — a bit gawky and wet-behind-the-ears, but smart and quickly finding his bearings in a new situation.

John Kaiser revels in the opportunities of the flamboyant McClintic, a ripe peach of a role that he infuses with sly wit and seedy grandeur. Mary Westbrook stresses Macy’s loyalty, protectiveness and apprehension, though somewhat hampered by flat, stilted delivery.

If lacking optimal polish and depth, Edge Theatre’s Grand Manner still makes a pleasant interlude among agreeable people.