Jerker, or the Helping Hand

The late Robert Chesley's landmark 1986 two-hander about a gay phone-sex relationship during the burgeoning AIDS crisis retains an uncanny potency, dated era references notwithstanding. If director Glenn Kessler's ambitious 25th-anniversary reinvention brings Chesley's seminal work to the text-message generation, that is recommendation enough.

"A Pornographic Elegy With Redeeming Social Value and a Hymn to the Queer Men of San Francisco in Twenty Phone Calls, Many of Them Dirty" is the play's sub-subtitle, which sums it up. Lonely proletarian Bert (Gregory Allen) and Vietnam veteran J.R. (director Kessler) hook up in a series of telephone conversations that begin with graphic masturbatory detail, then gradually become a genuine tragic romance.

It's a duologue that Auden and Gide might envy, hardly less acute than at the play's Celebration Theatre premiere, not to mention the FCC's infamous reaction to a fundamentalist listener's complaint over KPFK-aired excerpts. Nobly attempting to expand "Jerker" 's reach, director Kessler deploys an ensemble of hunky young men to embody the sexual fantasies and personal revelations. Performed with unalloyed commitment by Corey-Adam Affron, Gregory Barnett, Ben Cuevas, Parnell Damone, and Sammy Murrian, this virtual Greek chorus in jockstraps interjects lines against a prerecorded dialogue track that Allen and Kessler alternately lip-synch to, talk over, and replace with live speech. This proves inventive and problematic.

Chesley's magnum opus remains a scabrous yet affecting marvel of construction, and Kessler's approach periodically locates new insights. He and Allen give themselves to the nudity and simulated self-gratification, and not in an exploitative way. Certain passages—J.R.'s confession of when he and Bert met face-to-face, Bert's recollection of an unforgettable dalliance—benefit from having alter egos in tableaux vivants, the climactic breaking of the distance between the two men's bedrooms quietly riveting.

However, by pulling focus away from the two principals to the center-stage groupings and aurally creating an echoing sound chamber—Purple Crush's sound design is, like Michael Jackson's lighting, expert—the staging distances us from the characters as often as it draws us in. Some twists register less effectively—for example, the impact of J.R.'s physical situation is moot if his portrayer walks unhindered most of the night—and the ending falls short of its intended devastating pathos. Nonetheless, this fearless, palpably sincere revival warrants respect and admiration, just as the writing's enduring power merits attendance.

Presented by and at Space 916, 916 Formosa Ave., Hollywood. Nov. 4-20. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. (323) 418-2583. www.jerker25.com.