The Leopard

The late Yabo Yablonsky's solo play about Ernest Hemingway in the last days of his life doesn't exactly expand on conventions of the biographical monodrama. Nor, in 90 minutes, can it do more than shoot a judicious, selective biographical overview across its edgily jocular character portrait. Yet this thoughtfully engrossing piece also carries genuine immediacy and regard for the spirit as well as the letter of the man.

Certainly, devotees of Hemingway should check out John F. Goff as "Papa," who addresses the audience directly as the legendary author tries to outrace his failing memory and imminent mortality, which Goff captures with strongly felt commitment and noteworthy ingenuity. Visually somewhere between late-era James Mason and middle-period Dakin Matthews, Goff bears enough of a resemblance to Hemingway to convince us as he searches for rum—hidden by wife Miss Mary behind Dante's "Inferno"—and careens from historical thought to personal introspection, laced with titular passages from "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Goff's gravel-voiced delivery sometimes errs on the side of joviality, and director T.J. Castronovo permits a large degree of metrical sameness, but that hardly keeps the actor and the icon he portrays from grabbing attention and holding it.

His narrative ricochets through Castro's Cuba and Franco's Spain, Blitz-torn London, the Lost Generation's Paris, big-game hunting in Africa, shock therapy, and Idaho retirement. Along the way, Hemingway ruminates on and rants over a quorum of the 20th century's most famous people, from Pablo Picasso and Ernie Pyle to Ava Gardner and Gertrude Stein and back again. Throughout, Goff keeps the viewer from overdosing on Hemingway's contradictions, even if the more purple memories and quotes might well seem prolix to the uninitiated, and the intermission, though cleverly written into the piece, is unnecessary.

Still, Yablonsky's subdued choices and Goff's conversational energy prevent the eye from wandering back to the hunting rifle that begins over the fireplace of Jeff Rack's intimate set and ends beneath its owner's chin. That veritable elephant in the study, which comes without warning even when one knows what's coming, provides a solid if not exactly subtle culmination to this quietly involving look at a giant in his decline. Hemingway devotees should be sated, detractors respectful.

Presented by CRC Entertainment and Working Stage Theater at Working Stage Theater, 1516 N. Gardner St., Hollywood. Sept. 9-Oct. 9. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (323) 960-7784. www.plays411.com/theleopard.