STAGE REVIEW : Lahti Plays With Fire in ‘Smoke’

Tennessee Williams was always amused (publicly anyway) when a strong-minded actress would take one of his heroines in the direction she wanted. We remember his guffaws at the Ahmanson’s ’73 revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” where Faye Dunaway’s Blanche damn well insisted on the kindness of strangers.

It wasn’t his play, but it was a performance. The same applies to Christine Lahti’s portrayal of Miss Alma in the Ahmanson’s revival of “Summer and Smoke” (1948).

Miss Alma is usually seen as a caged bird. Lahti makes her a right-on woman whose biggest problem is that she feels like a klutz next to the beautifully designed young guy next door (Christopher Reeve.)

Contrary to what we keep hearing about Alma from everybody, including Alma, Lahti doesn’t strike us as being particularly shy, flighty, mannered or subject to the vapors. When she has to call Reeve on the phone, for instance, she doesn’t have to steel herself to be so bold and unladylike. She sits right down and dials the number.

Nor is she--and this is supposed to be Miss Alma’s problem--out of touch with her body. In fact, she’s positively huggy with people: her favorite singing student (Carol Barbee), her family doctor (Russel Lunday), etc. She would warm up to the marriage bed in an instant.

It’s as if Lahti is defending Alma from the bad rap of being a milk-and-water spinster who pretends to be above her anatomy. Even Alma’s nervous laugh comes off as healthy and well-centered, rather like Carol Burnett’s. It’s easier to imagine her teaching home-ec in some Kansas high school than giving singing lessons in a Mississippi rectory.

It’s wrong, but under the circumstances it works. Marshall W. Mason has staged this production for the Ahmanson, and his approach is ruthlessly practical, given the size of the house. Everything is as big and easy-to-read as possible, from John Lee Beatty’s revolving-gazebo settings to the hip-swinging, pistol- packing Mexicans (Joaquin Martinez, Wanda De Jesus), with whom Reeve is going to the dogs next door.

Nobody’s going to come out of this show feeling starved for drama and comedy; not if Mason can help it. It’s consistent, then, that Lahti’s words brand her as an introvert, while her body language displays her as an extrovert. Entertaining the troops is the idea, and this is accomplished.

And without vulgarity. Alma’s literary circle (Michael Chieffo, Jacque Lynn Colton, etc.) are geeks, as they are in the script. But Lahti respects Miss Alma--the Miss Alma that she has invented--and gives her dignity.

If Act I doesn’t have a moment where the listener’s finer feelings are engaged (a harder thing to do than entertain the troops), Act II has several such moments, particularly after Reeve’s John Buchanan has decided not to go to the dogs, after all.

It’s interesting to see Reeve and Lahti together. She has high stage visibility. He doesn’t, and the roistering scenes don’t have the punch they should have. Reeve doesn’t project a man who lives (unlike Miss Alma) inside his skin. For example, Reeve forgets, in one scene, that somebody has just stuck a knife in his shoulder.

But when Reeve’s character settles down to being the thoughtful and responsible person he’s supposed to be, actor and character combine, and one sees how sad it is that he and Miss Alma missed the boat. They aren’t opposites at all.

It’s no tragedy, though. This “Summer and Smoke” tends to see things on the bright side. (Alma’s mad mother, Lois de Banzie, is more cute than distressing.) So it’s possible that the young man whom Miss Alma picks up in the town square (Beau Gravitte) will turn out to be Mister Right, not the first in a long line of one-night stands.

We know, from his 1976 rewrite, “The Eccentricities of a Nightingale,” that Williams’ didn’t see much hope for Alma at all. Still there’s some truth to the notion that once a play leaves the typewriter it becomes the property of the actors.

This “Summer and Smoke” (Carol Potter Eastman will play Alma at the Thursday matinees) is a less complex and interesting play than the one Williams wrote. But it makes a kind of primitive theatrical sense, and it’s a clear advance from the Ahmanson’s first two shows, the stillborn “Best Man” and the desultory “I Never Sang for My Father.” For this relief, much thanks.

‘SUMMER AND SMOKE’ Tennessee Williams’ play, presented by Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre. Director Marshall W. Mason. Settings John Lee Beatty. Costumes Laura Crow. Lighting Dennis Parichy. Original music Peter Kater. Production stage manager Frank Marino. With Christopher Reeve, Christine Lahti, Carol Potter Eastman, Carol Barbee, Michael Chieffo, Lois de Banzie, Wanda De Jesus, Russel Lunday, Richard Seff, Leo Carranza, Jacque Lynn Colton, Beau Gravitte, Joaquin Martinez, Rand Mitchell, Kristina Oster. Plays at 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, with 2 p.m. matinees Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Tickets $11-$35. Closes April 10. 135 N. Grand Ave. (213) 410-1062 or (714) 634-1300.