STAGE REVIEW : ‘LA VENEXIANA’: AFTER THE LAUGHTER . . .

Once upon a time, a beautiful widow fell head over heels in love with a handsome youth who had just arrived in Venice from the country . . . .

“La Venexiana” sounds like a tale from Boccaccio, and may have been played that way when it was first performed 400 years ago. At Macgowan Hall, UCLA, where director Maurizio Scaparro has re-created his 1984 Teatro di Roma production, it still gets its share of bawdy laughs.

But--as it should--the laughter wanes as the evening goes on. That’s because Scaparro’s star, Valeria Moriconi (the rest of the cast is from UCLA), makes it impossible to take this anonymous tale lightly. Moriconi may have learned her English lines by rote, but her feelings as the widow are terrifyingly fluent.

This isn’t the cliched older woman with the secret smile. This is a driven woman who uses young men to persuade her that her mirror lies--that death isn’t creeping closer every year. She is not a cynic. She can feel a passing maternal tenderness for her partner. But the ground note of her lovemaking is frenzy, like an addict going for his rush. And the next morning, when the young man politely leaves, she feels an addict’s emptiness.

Moriconi gives the role a delicate double edge. (Everyone else in the cast does well to get one thing across.) We see the widow both as an “abandoned woman” and as a woman who has never stopped judging herself. She will be shaken by gusts of contradictory feelings--elation at her sensuality, disgust at the lengths to which she follows it. An ironic laugh will turn into a half-sob.

An American is reminded of Tennessee Williams’ women, particularly the distracted heroine of “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.” Director Scaparro may also may be thinking about “Death in Venice,” for there’s something particularly black in the shadows of this production, something strangely cell-like about its rooms. Where the young hero sees sumptuousness, we see a house stripped for departure.

Visually, the production is just enough. Scaparro uses a simple stage, suggesting the docks of the city (it was adapted by Don Crabs from the original set by Roberto Francia). His stage pictures are immaculate--each figure positioned for maximum impact and no figure moved without cause.

Likewise, the costumes (by Alan Armstrong and Emanuele Luzzati) feel costly without straining for magnificence, and the incidental music by Giancarlo Chiaramello is plangent and melancholy, like bells tolling a long way off. Yet there’s wit in such touches as having night literally “fall” on the city: a black curtain slowly effacing a lemon cyclorama. (William D. Ward did the lighting.)

Disappointingly, but not unexpectedly, the UCLA cast is only a background for the spectacular Moriconi. The youth’s role isn’t that of a total innocent, nor a total opportunist. He might be played with many colors. Actor Wally Kurth makes him from first to last an oblivious young fellow, not nearly as interesting as the widow.

Nor does Janet Lazarus find anything more in Valeria (the widow’s rival for the youth) than a discontented wench who wants what she wants when she wants it. Likewise, the maidservants (Melissa Dingwell and Starletta DuPois) are your standard Renaissance wenches, and Tom Wheatley as Bernardo the old porter doesn’t add anything to the expected phallic jokes.

Of course, it may be a play that can’t bear too much acting. Indeed, one could question whether it’s a play at all. Narrator Patrick Stretch claims only that it’s “a true story,” and the text (translated by P. M. Pasinetti, with Murtha Baca) comes to no particular point.

But Scaparro has found a happy final chord for it on the stage. The veiled widow watches as the youth leaves the dock. He sees her and points to the chain around his neck--her gift to him--as if to say: I won’t forget. A lie, but a kindly lie. Mrs. Stone would have settled for it.

“La Venexiana” plays nightly at 8 through Saturday. Scapparo will host a conference on the play April 3 at UCLA. Information: 825-2581.