A COLLOQUY AT THE MARK TAPER

When Christianity was an underground religion, the Mass was celebrated in two parts. First there was the Mass of the Catechumens--those still taking instruction, perhaps including a secret agent or two from the emperor. Then the hall was cleared and the inner rite began: the Mass of the Faithful.

Nobody was forced to leave the Mark Taper Forum on Thursday night after the performance of John Steppling’s “The Dream Coast,” but about half the crowd did so. (Quite a few had left before that.) Perhaps 200 of the faithful remained in their seats to participate in the central rite of this year’s New Theatre for Now festival: talking about the play.

Some had paid $50 for the privilege--the cost of a subscription to “In the Works ‘85,” this year’s monthlong festival of plays-in-progress. Some had paid $12.50, the cost of a ticket to each performance. Some had paid $6, the cost of a rush seat.

Their mood was mixed. “The Dream Coast” is a dark play about the kind of people whom the smart landlord doesn’t rent an apartment to. Transients. Druggies. People who hardly can put a sentence together, let alone get their lives in order.

Moreover, Steppling’s play was written in terse little scenes that weren’t too easy to string together: something about a man trying to get a job with one of the studios, while another man (who seemed to be interested in the first one sexually) tried to get him to burn down his apartment house. There was also a scene where a hooker did a transvestite’s hair. In between came interludes of thumps and squeaks from a piano and string bass.

This was music? This was drama? “Morbid,” said the woman next to me when the lights came up. To which she added, surprisingly: “This is life, by the way.” So Steppling’s play had hit her, in some way. She would stick around to see what other people made of it.

The discussion was led by Robert Egan, the director in general charge of the festival, and Jack Viertel, formerly the Herald Examiner’s drama critic, now a Taper dramaturge. They kept the comments specific and they did not encourage gush, although after one woman praised Steppling’s dialogue, Egan made certain that everybody in the hall had heard her. Hearing was a problem, because the Taper stagehands were striking the set.

In general, the faithful weren’t happy with “The Dream Coast,” but they weren’t angry at it. They were interested in knowing why they hadn’t been more interested. Some people thought they knew exactly what it needed more of. An artist talked about the need for contrast in a work--the need for warm colors even when the general hue is cool.

Others weren’t so sure what was wrong. They just felt alienated. Damon Runyon’s riffraff were funny, and Samuel Beckett’s tramps had a tragic existential resonance, but Steppling’s people seemed so drab, so--what was the word?

Local, maybe, although nobody brought it up. It’s disturbing to think that life in an apartment at Olympic and Union might, indeed, proceed at the pace of life at the bottom of the sea--a stoned groping toward the light, bound to fail.

“I was moved,” somebody said. Somebody else warned about the danger of trying to turn Steppling’s kind of play--he’s been performed in town before but not at the Taper--into a conventional cause-and-effect drama.

“Why did you like it?” somebody asked Egan, and he spoke of how it seemed to relate to his own life: of how Steppling’s people simply aren’t so clever at distracting themselves from the bottom line of the human condition as are some of us.

A woman in the back seemed to sum up the discussion, addressing the question of the music: “I didn’t like it. But it was right. It was apropos.”

So with Steppling’s play. The audience recognized it, without being able to embrace it. And so the faithful departed.

“The Dream Coast” has two more performances at the Taper at 2:30 and 8 p.m. today. Doris Baizley’s “Mrs. California” plays Sunday. Next week’s shows are Thomas Babe’s “Planet Fires” and Neil Bell’s “Sleeping Dogs.” Call: (213) 972-7211.

‘THE DREAM COAST’

John Steppling’s play, opening New Theatre for Now’s “In the Works ‘85” festival at the Mark Taper Forum. Director Steppling. Setting John Ivo Gilles. Costumes Terry Soon. Lighting Paulie Jenkins. Music Don Preston. Sound Daniel Birnbaum. Dramaturges Jessica Teich, Jack Viertel. With Bob Glaudini, Louis R. Plante, Elizabeth Ruscio, Michael Collins, Tina Preston, John Pappas, Lee Kissman, Robert Hummer, Sharon Madden. Musicians Don Preston, Putter Smith. Plays today only at 2:30 and 8 p.m. Tickets $6-$12.50. 135 N. Grand Ave. (213) 972-7211.