Photo Source: Ed Krieger
The play is set in 1952 Los Angeles, with most of the action taking place in a bar at Union Station as passengers await the departure of a train to San Francisco. Narrating the yarn is Richard Doyle, a hardboiled private dick with a perpetual scowl (dryly played by James Gleason as a cross between a scruffy Columbo and a pithy Sam Spade). When murder rears its head at the train station, Doyle heads there to interrogate the myriad suspects.
The ensemble players valiantly attempt to elicit moments of fun from the material, mostly to little avail. Michele Bernath displays spirit as the dumb-like-a-fox wife of a businessman from New York, affecting a high-pitched nasal voice reminiscent of Gloria Grahame, with a hint of Vivian Blaine's Adelaide from "Guys and Dolls." David P. Johnson scores occasional laughs as a handsome middle-aged actor who now looks 30-something as the result of an experimental youth drug (one of the script's few gags with contemporary resonance). Carlos Ciurlizza, saddled with the stereotypical role of an effeminate Latino bartender, lays on the hackneyed characteristics with a trowel.
In general, the characters are sketchily written, with insufficient backstory revealed. When the lengthy interrogations ensue, we know so little about these individuals that the gumshoe's theories about each person's motives seem arbitrary. Equally inconsequential is the solution to the case, which appears to come out of thin air. Perhaps this wouldn't matter as much if the dialogue was infused with better punch lines and there was a palpable veneer of genuine satire.
At the opening-night performance, some actors looked uncomfortable as they were clumped upstage, waiting to pick up their cues while jokes crashed and leaden pacing prevailed. Adding to the muddle were the numerous instances of fluffed lines by one lead player, who corrected his dialogue so frequently that a better title for this world-premiere effort might be "Backtracked."
Presented by Sharon Michaels, in association with Macha Theatre, at Macha Theatre, 1107 N. Kings Rd., West Hollywood. Feb. 3–19. Thu.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (323) 960-7724 or www.plays411.com.
