STAGE REVIEWS : ‘TIME OF YOUR LIFE’

With its disciplined direction and several fine performances, “The Time of Your Life” at Saddleback College delivers some compelling moments but, unfortunately, there are too few of them to sustain involvement.

The classic William Saroyan comedy-drama is set in a San Francisco bar that is the meeting place of any number of ingratiating characters, dreamers all. In this bar, the playwright has created an environment that exists apart from the rest of the world--a place where alcoholics and prostitutes have a romantic nobility, where people express themselves with poetic purity, where all are unabashedly true to their souls.

Director H. Wynn Pearce accommodates Saroyan’s setting with a constant and effective rhythm, whether he’s bringing a character into focus in a monologue or orchestrating an ensemble piece with a theatrical flourish. Pearce fails, however, to negotiate the play’s tendency to long-windedness, and often allows the tone of the production to drift into complacency.

Any production of this play, with its mystical qualities and its earthy characters, can only be as good as its cast. Michael Bielitz as Joe, the bar’s principal philosopher, has the charisma to communicate the show’s weighty thematic ideas, and he uses a light touch that keeps the ultimate impotency of this enigmatic character from becoming maudlin. Bielitz is at the center of the most effective scenes, the finest of which presents his encounter with another patron, played by Deanna Watkins--it fairly simmers with wistful romanticism.

The other cast members don’t show the depth needed to express Saroyan’s spirituality, but they produce some engaging moments. Thomas E. Amen is nicely uncomplicated as the handsome Tom, who falls in love at first glance with a lonely prostitute, and Tom Scott is cold to the bone as the evil vice squad cop. Terry Christopher as the aspiring pinball champion, Mark Lambrecht as the caddish ladies’ man and Bruce Bierman as the hoofer waiting for the big break are energetic in their roles, and they show a keen appreciation for Saroyan’s language. Pearce allows other performances to lean too far toward melodrama, however.

Wally Huntoon designed the dreamlike set that, with Charles Castagno’s fabulous period costumes and R. Craig Wolf’s imaginative lighting, creates a wonderfully ethereal atmosphere.

“The Time of Your Life” continues through Sunday at Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. For information, call (714) 582-4656.