January 28, 2005
THEATER BEAT
43 twists on 'Seagull' scene
There are veritable novels of subtext buried in Chekhov's plays.
Typically actors and scholars are the specialists who plumb those depths
between the lines, but with "The Nina Variations," playwright Steven
Dietz joins in, taking apart the heartbreaking penultimate scene of "The
Seagull" like a watch repairman spilling gears out of an old timepiece.
In 43 brisk iterations, Dietz tinkers with the scene's clockwork
to see if Treplev, Chekhov's suicidal young writer, can "rewrite" his
final encounter with Nina, the neophyte actress who's returned from Moscow
bruised by love and humbled by the stage. In director Hope Alexander's L.A.
premiere staging, Dietz's irreverent wit comes through in spades. "A
seagull to a lake?" Nina (Khamara Pettus) asks of the play's portentous
central image. As Treplev, long-faced, middle-aged Alan Altshuld makes the
writer's complaints and equivocations fretfully funny, particularly when he
momentarily acquires a knowing, sarcastic bite. "If we can't have strong feelings
about things we know nothing about," he wonders, "how could we ever
fall in love?"
The show is less successful as a meditation on faith and
discontent, partly because Alexander has two other Ninas onstage: one a 50-ish
broad (Bobbi Stamm) with a ladies-who-lunch swagger, the other an amorphous,
flighty creature (Maria Kress). This proves more distracting than revealing,
since by herself the mercurial Pettus captures all of Nina's facets, from naive
to wised-up.
Lighting designer Dan Weingarten bathes Alexander's crumpled-paper
set in a rainbow of lovely hues. If only the show achieved as wide a spectrum
of feeling and insight.
"The Nina Variations," the Company Rep, 5112
Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m.
Sundays. Ends Feb. 19. $15 to $22.50. (866) 811-4111. Running time: 1 hour, 10
minutes.