STAGE REVIEW : ‘COMPANY’: ALONE AGAIN, WITH SAMUEL BECKETT

It has been said that there were three Henry Jameses: James the First, James the Second and James the Pretender. Meaning that in his last novels, the convoluted manner has so overwhelmed the subject that it has become the subject.

Some people find late James the richest of all, of course. And some followers of Samuel Beckett may find his “Company” (1980) an exquisite summation of all that Beckett has told us about man’s encounter with his nothingness. Risking irreverence, I thought the piece bordered on self-parody.

A speaker (Alan Mandell) sits in a chair in the gloom and talks to himself, of himself. Memories of boyhood and manhood recur: Daddy telling him to be a brave boy and dive into the water. The look of a certain woman in a summerhouse.

Whether he jumped, and what the woman meant to him (he may have gotten her pregnant) are not nailed down. In fact, these may not be memories at all. They may be figments: images devised to pass the time, for “company.” The man listening to his voice in the dark is perhaps a writer. The dark may be his own dying. In any case, it finds him--as he always has been--alone.

Or, as printed in the text--Alone. Capital A. At the Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre, the lights go down on Mandell and then up again as he pronounces the fatal word. We are not to leave the room in any doubt about Beckett’s view of the human condition.

But we have known this ever since “Waiting for Godot.” The fascination with every new Beckett stage piece is to see how he will say it this time--what the device will be. In that regard, “Company” lacks fascination. It feels like “Rockaby” (wherein an old lady watches her life gutter out) without the rocking chair.

One reason could be that Beckett didn’t originally write it for the stage (although his name does appear on this adaptation, along with those of Pierre Chabert and S. E. Gontarski, who staged the LAAT production). Had he done so, he might have used a less dense prose and might have devised a focal image (such as the old lady’s rocking chair or Krapp’s tape recorder) that would give the piece an interesting, if minimal, physical life.

At LAAT, we have, rather, a text put on stage. It is well read by actor Mandell, with due attention to the way the various themes crisscross and fade. There’s nothing personally fascinating about Mandell’s approach, however.

His voice is suave, never in any trouble, even when discussing dire things. He serves the master’s words with no reference to a character that he himself has imagined, but in more or less the master’s own style--dry, with just a ghost of a smile.

Neutrally, one might say. That would probably please Beckett, who is quoted in the program as finding the idea of the curtain call abominable. But it reinforces this production’s sense of being an awed graduate seminar rather than a living experience. When theater becomes a few of the elect gathered around to study the master’s latest text with a microscope, something has been lost.

LAAT’s designer, Timian Alsaker, has devised an effective chamber for the piece, however--a black room with even blacker chairs. They seem casually strewn about, but they are actually rooted to the ground, and the seats are surprisingly comfortable. For this relief, much thanks.

‘COMPANY’ Samuel Beckett’s novella, adapted for the stage by Beckett, Pierre Chabert and S. E. Gontarski. Director Gontarski. Producer Diane White. Production design Timian Alsaker. Sound design Jon Gottlieb. With Alan Mandell. Plays Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. (no performances March 7-10). Tickets $8-$10. 1089 N. Oxford Ave., 464-5500.