NEW AYCKBOURN COMEDY : ‘HENCEFORWARD’ TAKES THE FUTURE BYTE BY BYTE

Pat Brown, artistic director of Houston’s Alley Theatre, wanted to do another Alan Ayckbourn comedy, of which the Alley had already done six. Did Ayckbourn have a new script she could look at?

“I have one in here,” said England’s most popular playwright, pointing to his head. And that is how Houston got to see Ayckbourn’s 35th-or-so play, “Henceforward . . .,” before London did.

It’s the kind of story that gets told about plays which turn out to have been mildewing in the author’s trunk for years. Not here. “Henceforward . . .” seems to have been written five minutes ago, about a world five minutes hence.

Don’t expect a work-in-progress, however. “Henceforward . . .” is a fully explored play, and a brilliant one. Houston made an enormous fuss last week over John Adams’ new opera, “Nixon in China.” But when the smoke clears, this may prove to be a more significant American premiere.

Up to now, we have thought of Ayckbourn as the purveyor of amusing plays about suburban bumblers, plays with titles like “How the Other Half Loves.” Here we see him as a thoughtful and painfully honest reporter of the crooked human heart--more crooked every year, it seems.

It’s not that Ayckbourn has quit writing comedy. The central scene in “Henceforward . . .”--set “sometime quite soon”--is a wonderfully loony tea party where the hostess, unbeknownst to her guests, is a robot.

Her name is Nan 300F. Ayckbourn’s hero, a conflicted composer played by George Segal, got her from a chap down the hall who was moving out. After his first marriage, Nan is all that Segal is up to.

The purpose of the tea party is to convince Segal’s first wife (Annalee Jefferies) and a smarmy social worker (Adam LeFevre) that Segal is running a proper household and can be entrusted with the care of their daughter (Brenda Daly.)

The scene’s first joke is that Nan (Donna Yeager, in an absolutely lovable performance) is only an experimental robot, and can’t be absolutely relied on to keep her duties straight. One lump or 12? Segal has to keep jumping in.

The second, darker joke, is that he needn’t bother: Nobody cares. Even more than in Chekhov’s plays, the people in the room are too full of themselves to take in what’s really happening in the room, to tell an electronic woman from a real one.

Indeed, a robot suits everyone’s purposes better. Segal, for example, finds it a great convenience to have a wife whom he can shut off. And his savage teen-age daughter responds favorably to Nan’s firm hand as a disciplinarian, which is exactly what she has missed from her real mother.

The implication is that human beings make such a botch of their relationships that any decently programmed machine could do it better. There’s a further implication that, because we treat each other so mechanically already, it might be a relief to live in a world where every other “person” actually is a machine.

Ayckbourn specifically includes the artist in this circle of selfishness. Segal’s electronic composer is, in fact, the play’s most monstrous figure. He bugs his own bedroom to get voice samplings for his pieces, and he would far prefer to cue up a composition about love than to have to deal with the real thing. The ending sees him going wild at the keyboard, with his family consigned to outer darkness--a nerd mutating into the Phantom of the Opera. Funny, and not at all funny.

Ayckbourn directed the Alley production, which is state-of-the-art all the way. (Charles S. Kading did the set; James Sale, the lights; Howard Tsvi Kaplan, the costumes; Paul Todd, the electronic music.)

But he hasn’t left it to his designers to furnish his world of the future. He has imagined it in detail. For example, when Segal wants to give a meal to a guest (Yeager, playing another sort of “hostess”), all he has to do is unzip the package and the dinner cooks itself in 30 seconds flat.

But the dinner still tastes like cardboard. Similarly, the advantage of a video answering machine is that your friends can now put their boring faces, as well as their boring voices, on your tape. Segal zaps them with his fast-forward button.

The more convenient life becomes, the less savor it has. Meanwhile, out in the streets, it’s a jungle, with the marauders often being female. This play isn’t kidding about what it sees coming down the street. It’s the most convincing urban nightmare since Jules Feiffer’s “Little Murders.”

The Houston critics weren’t too convinced by the acting, especially not by Segal’s. He had settled into the part more comfortably when I saw him, but it’s a devilishly difficult one, all negatives.

Judy Geeson started out as his co-star, but left the part after a couple of weeks, for undisclosed reasons. It’s difficult to imagine Geeson being stronger than Yeager, both as a chubby-kneed real-life girl and the ever-smiling Nan. Whatever happens to this show, she should be part of it.

What will happen? A Broadway production was discussed, but is apparently off. A London production is sure for next fall, but with an English cast. Anyone with a theater to fill in Los Angeles might hop a plane for Houston.

In any case, we haven’t heard the last of “Henceforward . . .”

‘HENCEFORWARD...’ Alan Ayckbourn’s newest comedy, at the Alley Theatre, Houston. Director Ayckbourn. Set Charles S. Kading. Costumes Howard Tsvi Kaplan. Lighting James Sale. Sound John Michener. Music Paul Todd. Stage manager Mark Tynan. Assistant stage manager M. Pat Hodge. With George Segal, Donna Yeager, Annalee Jefferies, Adam LeFevre, Brenda Daly. Plays Tuesdays-Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 4 and 9 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Closes Nov. 15. 615 Texas Ave., Houston 77002; (713) 228-8421.