STAGE REVIEW : ACTOR AND CHARACTER ON THE ‘ROAD’

We’ve seen Sam Diego’s kind of character before--in the Brooklyn and Paris tales of Henry Miller and the endless road yarns of Jack Kerouac. The question is: Does Sam have anything new to tell us in “Rules of the Road,” by Budge Threlkeld and Stephen Tobolowsky?

Yes and no. Sam plays a character with his name. But Sam the actor and Sam the hitchhiker could be the same guy, going on the legendary exploits the program and press material attribute to him. It seems that Sam improvises a great deal, and that Tobolowsky found him living out of his car just weeks before rehearsals. Of course, this could be a tall tale like so many our hero of the road spins. The well-told exaggeration and the blurring of creator and creation are old Miller and Kerouac tactics. But at Theatre/Theatre, they’re distractions from fairly mediocre writing.

Thomas Callaway’s design in the theater’s small backstage space has us sitting single row against the wall, with the remaining room taken up by Sam’s domain: the open highway, marked by the white dashed line. But while his world is definitely the stage, it isn’t filled with a great deal of anything interesting or funny. (The crowd I saw it with was clearly full of friends of the production: They were the ones who were laughing.)

One of Sam’s high points early on is calling his favorite drink, tequila, “to kill ya’.” One of his lows is when he refers to himself as “a road scholar.” And after fellow hitcher Mike, the woman of his dreams (Michele Winding), leaves Sam for a ride, we’re amused at how Sam tries to kill himself and then awakens from his death wish.

Besides this, Sam’s monologues lack the spine and spice of poetry or the charge of fevered visions that the road so often inspires in the imaginative mind. He’s a nice shlump with a lot of useful hitching tips (“always travel alone,” “always carry some cash”) who makes sure that he dresses in his best finery when picking up a ride. That, in sum, is the character.

Nowhere to be found is a sense of the absurd normally inherent in this kind of material. Gone is our curiosity to find out about this guy’s past and what makes him tick. No character contradictions, no subterfuges, no outlandish pranks. Has hitching gone conservative, like the rest of the country? Say it isn’t so, Sam.

Diego and Winding turn in friendly, well-counterbalanced performances. He’s aging but very clear about his “profession.” She’s flighty, half-focused but determined to escape her hometown to save her life. Just when we’re beginning to know and like her, she’s gone. It’s that kind of show, under Tobolowsky’s direction.

Performances at 1713 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays, 8:30 p.m., (213) 850-6941. Runs indefinitely.