STAGE REVIEW : ‘LARGO’: POLITICS OF AN INHIBITED MAN

People were ready to commit hara-kiri for the chance to see John Malkovich in “Burn This” at the Mark Taper Forum a few weeks back. There probably won’t be much trouble getting tickets for Robin Gammell in “Largo Desolato” at Taper, Too (through March 22). Gammell isn’t a hot performer and his character isn’t a sex object, just a balding professor who wants--oh, so desperately--to be left alone.

But for those of us who like to be drawn into a performance, as opposed to being zapped by it, Gammell’s work is just as spectacular as was Malkovich’s. How can an actor be spectacular in a play about a man who doesn’t dare to put his nose out of the house? Come and see.

It helps to have a good script. “Largo Desolato” is by Czech writer Vaclav Havel. (Tom Stoppard did the English adaptation.) Havel is a political playwright who would rather not be one. Were conditions in his country different, perhaps he’d be doing boulevard comedies. Even in the ones he does write, there’s laughter.

Hardly carefree laughter, though. Havel’s plays (Taper, Too did his “A Private View” in ‘84) reflect the crazy-making quality of life in a society where they , the people at the top, decide what makes sense and what doesn’t.

Who are they ? That’s one of the problems. The two tough guys who sail into Gammell’s apartment (Douglas Roberts and John Apicella) may represent them. But they look just like the men who were here ten minutes ago, representing us .

Is the professor going crazy--to add to his constipation? The constipation tells us that this isn’t going to be a pompous “Darkness at Noon” kind of play, and Gammell certainly doesn’t present the professor as any kind of hero. When he runs to the peephole to see who’s there (frequently nobody’s there), he looks as if he’d like to squeeze into it and disappear.

He hates being a dissident. He isn’t even sure he is a dissident. He wrote this philosophy book and they didn’t like it--that’s all he knows. When his friends lecture him about his “responsibilities,” he squirms. All he wants out of life is to read books and entertain attractive students (Laurie Walters, Virginia Madsen). Oh, professor, what sad eyes you have.

He isn’t even an intellectual hero. Gammell does bristle a bit as they suggest that, having gone to prison for his writings, he now leave them unclaimed, so to speak. But it’s not clear that he wouldn’t have eventually done so.

What actually does happen won’t be revealed. But don’t expect Gammell to tell them to go to hell, like Woody Allen in “The Front.” This is a European play, not an American movie. Havel has himself been to jail more than once for his writings. What happens is what probably would happen, and it’s just as frustrating and absurd as what’s gone before.

Idealized versions of life under a dictatorship (“Amerika,” for example) make the situation very clear, and leave the viewer with the heroic feeling that he would know exactly what to do. “Largo Desolato,” in its spacey way, feels much more like real life.

Not that the bad guys aren’t the bad guys, but the good guys aren’t much better. Gammell gets the uncomfortable feeling that the friends who somehow expect him to “take steps” against them don’t have the slightest idea of what they are talking about or the slightest inclination to follow him, if he did take steps.

His “responsibility” seems to be to become a kind of scapegoat, whose sacrifice will be further proof to them that there’s no sense struggling against the regime. Logically, then, he should be about his revolutionary business as soon as possible, so that they don’t have to feel guilty any more about not taking steps of their own.

His circle (Margot Rose, Ted Sorel, Dakin Matthews) are much too sophisticated to put it that way, but that’s what’s behind their evident disapproval of the neurotic and self-pitying way that he’s handling his “responsibilities.” The comic possibilities here are rich, but Richard Jordan’s actors don’t take their hypocrisy too far. Their scenes have the malicious lightness of an astute Moliere production, with the spectator trusted to catch what’s really being said.

But, as in Moliere, it’s all built around one comedian. Gammell’s panicked professor doesn’t have a large number of notes to hit. Even on a good day, this is an inhibited man, and this is a terrible day. But he censors his fear as best he can, between trips to the bathroom and trips to the door. On the sofa, squashed between his two bulky visitors, he suddenly sits bolt upright--No! I won’t slump! It lasts about a minute.

John Iacovelli has designed a magnificently clammy den for the professor, with pillars that also have a hard time standing up straight, and Shigeru Yaji’s costumes exactly define how well our hero is faring in this society, as opposed to how well his know-it-all friends are doing. “Largo Desolato” is a funny play that tells the truth, and Robin Gammell is a star.