STAGE REVIEW : ‘FORTY-DEUCE’ LOOKS AT MALE HUSTLERS’ WORLD

Anyone inclined to romanticize the world of the male hustler ought to see “Forty-Deuce” at the Pan Andreas Theatre. Anyone not so inclined will find it a chore.

Alan Bowne’s play shows the hustler’s trade as bleak, stupid and dangerous. That is something worth showing, especially in a theater on Santa Monica Boulevard. But as a theater piece it’s clumsy work.

The scene is a scabby room above 42nd Street, the lair of some young male prostitutes bossed around by a goon named Augie (Lee Wilkof). Under a sheet is the naked corpse of a youth who overdosed the night before (Christopher Franklin). What now?

Maybe they can blackmail one of their wealthy regular customers (David Hedison) into thinking he did it. But they had better be quick, because two black drug dealers (Barbara Alston, John Lafayette) are coming for their money that night. A mysterious, all-powerful “Mike” is also talked about.

But we’re never quite sure what the setup is here. Maybe Bowne intends to put us in the drug-slowed heads of his hustlers. Or maybe Alfred Sole’s actors (especially Steve Antin as the boyish Ricky) should work on their diction.

They don’t have to be told to speak up. Macho confrontation is the rule in “Forty-Deuce,” until it nearly ceases to register. It’s no surprise that the ending is violent, but it is a surprise that we don’t care more. Maybe it’s because we never got to know who these kids were.

Playwright Bowne tries. But when Mitchell, the Jewish queen (Anthony Barrile), goes into his story, it sounds like exposition. And when Blow, the stud (Marc Poppel), goes into his lament for the dead youth, it sounds like a soliloquy. “Forty-Deuce” has a language problem. It can’t get beyond inarticulate obscenities without becoming phony and pretentious.

The last is a particular problem for Hedison as the wealthy customer from the East Side. Hedison finds something real and disturbing here, however, a connoisseur of corruption. We can also believe the way the hustlers put on their most boyish ways for him, all part of the game. And Simon Doonan’s grim, gray, rain-dripping set absolutely puts you there.

But in the end it’s not an edifying evening. “SEX--DRUGS--LIFE--DEATH” promises the show’s red-and-black program, with its imitation blood splotches. Perhaps there is some romanticizing going on here, at that. At any rate, if you knew all this already, there’s no need to go over it again.

‘FORTY-DEUCE’ Alan Bowne’s play, at the Pan Andreas Theatre. Producer Paul Cunliffe. Director Alan Sole. Set design Simon Doonan. Lighting Barbara Ling. Costumes Michael Kaplan. With Christopher Franklin, Lee Wilkof, Anthony Barrile, Steve Antin, Lawrence Monoson, Marc Poppel, Barbara Alston, John Lafayette, David Hedison. Plays Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 and 7:30. Tickets $8-$12.50. 8325 Santa Monica Blvd. 655-4137.