STAGE REVIEW : Spirit Is Moving in Mastrosimone’s ‘Shivaree’

There’s nothing in the theater quite like the promise of a local premiere of a play by a playwright in ascendancy, and staged by a theater group that prides itself on quality work.

The play in this case is “Shivaree” by William Mastrosimone, who has made an alternately potent, erratic and controversial imprint with a body of work that includes “Extremities,” “Cat’s Paw,” “Tamer of Horses” and “Nanawatai.” Flawed plays all, but none without the aroma of a real writer endowed with a sense of style and ideas.

The theater group in this case is Theatre 40, where competence has ruled the roost, not letting in either work of real embarrassment or real genius. Sounds like a combination good show, if not a great one.

The promise is only accelerated by the first sight of Richard D. Bluhm’s fine set of an apartment seemingly floating in outer space (this also gives us a good preview of Lawrence Oberman’s elegantly crafted light design). Bluhm suggests the living quarters of Chandler Kimbrough, hemophiliac and self-described astrology hound, biophysicist and bibliophile, without filling in every detail. We see that the man is not quite of this earth.

The problem is that Mastrosimone makes sure we get the point by having a character--Laura Drake’s visiting hooker--say exactly this. If ever there was a case of a designer being truer to a play’s spirit than the playwright, this is it.

And yet, for the longest time--and it is no real fault of Ralph Senensky’s production--the spirit, and point, of “Shivaree,” an early work by Mastrosimone, is elusive in the extreme.

At first, Chandler (J. Downing) is introduced as a potentially comic character, prepping himself for a “date” with Drake, arranged by his hustling, two-timing buddy, Scagg (Chip Heller). Not surprisingly, his radically sheltered existence prevents him from going through with the dalliance. The comedy is only enhanced by the medium-height Downing facing Drake’s Amazonian presence.

Then, things get complicated with Chandler’s mother (Annie O’Donnell), a taxi driver with a direct radio line into his place, just in case anything goes wrong with her boy. She cares and, it’s clear in the best-written passages, she also cares too much. One step more and she becomes an ogre.

Which is what virtually happens by intermission--but not before Chandler has met Shivaree the exotic dancer (Christina Carlisi). She is literally the girl-next-door, a spunky Southerner whose dancing is about goddess worship, not sex.

Shivaree’s convictions are interesting, but they’re compromised when she’s sexually attracted to Chandler’s “purity.”

What’s going on here? Given the fact that Chandler must be a character in a cocoon (this is set in the pre-AIDS mid-’70s), Mastrosimone must have things happen to Chandler without his looking pathetic. Yet, in trying to compensate for this problem, he risks credibility if he pushes his hero into impossible acts of derring-do.

His solution is a love affair that rides on waves--check that--whole oceans of language. For Carlisi and Downing, alas, it’s an ocean to drown in (Chandler: “But for a dance, my eyes will pay tribute.” Shivaree: “Tribute I will take.”). Given a certain world and characters, this dialogue might work. But Mastrosimone, matching a woman of the earth with a man of outer space, hasn’t decided which world his play is in, resulting in Chandler saying, “The matter with me is that I am matter.”

Downing copes with this as best he can, and we do feel his terrible condition. Carlisi is just the irrepressibly charismatic force to bring Chandler out of his cage. Even O’Donnell and Heller, saddled with repellent and burdensome roles, unearth their human cores.

Admirable work, against unnecessarily difficult odds.

At 241 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills High School, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 8 p.m., until Sept. 25. Tickets: $12-$15; (213) 465-0070.