STAGE REVIEW : ‘ADULTS’ IS A SUITABLY HOT TOPIC

South Coast Repertory promised us “Theater to Talk About” this season. There wasn’t much to say about Larry Shue’s “The Foreigner” except “Duh.” But Terry Johnson’s “Unsuitable for Adults” will indeed start SCR’s audiences talking--and, perhaps, writing letters.

Most of the letters will concern the play’s language, which is ultra-raunchy. This is absolutely necessary to the story, which concerns a young British comic who goes farther than Lenny Bruce did and who is female to boot (Karen Hensel plays her). Still, some people just don’t like to hear Those Words in the theater. They’ll complain.

A more interesting letter will address the question of whether this is the feminist play that it seems to be--whether a male writer, however friendly toward women, doesn’t have a hidden biological bent toward putting them in their place.

Clearly Johnson takes his young heroine seriously. He sympathizes with her mixed feelings about men, whom she loathes for making women feel like some kind of an off-brand, and whom she also likes (or wants to be liked by, which could be part of the oppression).

Above all, he admires his heroine’s guts in getting up in public and trying to make art out of this stuff. This is not a Joan Rivers or a Phyllis Diller. Like Lenny Bruce, she sees her role as that of a provocateur. Her job, she says grimly (Hensel catches the grimness splendidly), is “to upset.” She’s there to “break silence.”

Therefore, her routines harp on such still-unmentionable topics as menstruation. (“Blood without violence--it freaks men out.”) The idea is to smash the taboos that have locked her sex into such a powerless position. But picture how this kind of routine would be received in a routine in a grotty workingman’s pub, the only kind that she and her partners (Richard Doyle, Troy Evans) can play.

The heckling drives her over the brink. In the middle of her act, she grabs a meat cleaver and threatens to turn it on herself. The ultimate taboo. The outcome won’t be revealed here. What’s interesting is how we read her action. Do we see her as a martyr in a good cause--mad, but justifiably so, like the people who set themselves afire to protest the Vietnam war--or do we see her as a hysterical woman who can’t take the heat of performing?

Perhaps that will depend on whether you’re male or female. As a man, I thought I was being asked by playwright Johnson to feel sorry for this poor girl, who wasn’t up to the pressure of dealing with the cruel male world--faithless lovers, mean-spirited hecklers--and who couldn’t really carry off the aggressiveness of stand-up comedy.

Granted, the play wants to go into much deeper regions than that, as in a slightly mystical postlude where the heroine is reunited with a beautiful, lost stripper whose story we also follow (Sally Klein)--both of them having found a clarity and peace that seems to have very little to do with men.

On the surface, though, “Unsuitable for Adults” is the story of a young woman caving in, and I thought I saw condescension there. Female viewers may see Johnson’s play in a different light. Couples who see it may find it not merely Theater to Talk About, but Theater to Fight About.

Beyond Johnson’s intentions, a second thing is clear: He can write. The best scene in the play has nothing to do, overtly, with its theme. It has Sally Klein as the stripper, groggy with the sleeping pills she has taken, trying to watch Troy Evans work one of his clumsy magic tricks.

She’s so fogged that she’s forgotten she’s trying to kill herself. He’s so intent on getting the trick right that he doesn’t see how strangely she’s behaving. David Emmes directs the scene with fine tension and humor, a very sad kind of humor. Even on the way to her death, this woman is trying to be polite to a man.

Not thematic? The image goes deeper than the comic’s most bitter thrust about male domination. “Unsuitable for Adults” is an overwritten piece--I didn’t mention the fact that there’s also a Jack the Ripper figure lurking about--but the specific gift for putting a situation on stage is there. We’ll hear more from this playwright and we’ll doubtless hear more about this play, not seen in the United States before. American feminists will have a fine time debating it.

‘UNSUITABLE FOR ADULTS’

Terry Johnson’s play, at South Coast Repertory. Director David Emmes. Setting Michael Devine. Costumes Susan Denison. Lighting Cameron Harvey. Technical director Ted Carlsson. Stage manager Andy Tighe. With Karen Hensel, Wayne Grace, Sally Klein, Richard Doyle, Troy Evans, John Napierla. Plays Tuesdays-Saturdays at 8:30 p.m., Sundays at 8 p.m., with matinees Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m. Closes April 6. Tickets $16-$21. 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. (714) 957-4033.