Playwright Doesn’t Run on Empty

“I used to hang around gas stations,” says playwright Michael Hacker, whose “Long Time Coming” opened last week at the Powerhouse. “There was a station on the corner of Argyle and Franklin that had a little driveway in the back, and on Friday and Saturday nights, the big excitement was to chase each other around (in cars), talk for a few hours, then do it again.”

Hacker (who assisted director Wim Wenders during his own 1978-81 stint at Zoetrope Studios) brings those memories to this play, the story of five people who live and work at a gas station. “From the outside, it might look like a crummy life. But what they do is totally integrated with their lives: They like what they do, they do a good job--and they’re connected to their work. That’s one of the big ideas in this: That people should be connected to the work they’re doing, whatever that is.”

But this gas station is in trouble. “One of the characters, Stanton (played by Joe Unger), is on the edge, trying to hold onto an ideal in the face of what’s happening, and treating his girlfriend (Lea Thompson) badly. The world doesn’t want him, but he’s obsessed with staying open because he can still offer ‘service.’ Things go from bad to worse.”

Hacker believes that gas stations are a terrific cultural symbol; he is also working on two other projects in which service stations figure. “Twenty years ago, when I was a kid in Hollywood, there was a station on every corner. They were like the mini-marts are now, holding the land because it’s cheap. But if you think back, it really was a great place: it served the community.” Hacker makes it clear, however, that this is not a nostalgic play. “It’s not,” he says, “ ‘Pump Boys and Dinettes.’ ”

“Jerker” is back. Robert Chesley’s two-man drama, which played locally in 1986 (followed by a highly publicized run-in with the Federal Communications Commission) recently opened at the Fifth Estate Theatre, where on April 3 (Easter) it will hold a closing night benefit performance for the Lesbian and Gay Rights chapter of the ACLU. Kelly Hill directs.

“There are a lot of reasons to do this again,” says Michael Kearns, who staged the original production and now co-stars with David Stebbins. “We did it in Des Moines, if you can believe it, then San Diego. I think the climate is even more right to do this now. There’s been an enormous amount of harassment by the fire deparment and police of bars and bookstores, not to mention the bathhouse controversy.”

He describes the action as “Boy meets boy. Boy gets boy. Boy loses boy over the course of 20 phone calls--some of which are obscene.”

It was precisely that charge of obscenity that prompted a California minister to file suit in 1986 against KPFK radio, which had aired late-night portions of the play. “Whatever that minister set out to accomplish,” Kearns says glumly, “he has. Now nothing questionable can go on the air before midnight. And it’s affected alternative radio stations across the country. Known pieces of art and potential art are being censored in 1988 America.”

In that light, Kearns feels “Jerker” is even more timely: “Theater is not only a sanctuary for gay artists, but a place to see our lives depicted.” And compared to other AIDS-era gay material, he says, “This is grittier, more confrontational. It’s also romantic, sexy, sweet. It dares to go further--to say, ‘Hey, we are sexual.’ ”

There are no apologies offered. “This play is about holding on to our sexuality in the midst of the AIDS crisis. It’s (Chesley’s) response to AIDS. AIDS has not rendered gay men sexless--in spite of the fact that some people would like it that way. At the time of the FCC brouhaha, a lot of people insisted on calling this a ‘safe sex play’--which is totally their own agenda. In reality, the play is a celebration of gay sex. It does not promote un safe sex, but it is not a lesson on how to have safe sex.”

LATE CUES: Also opening this week are Stephen Poliakoff’s “Breaking the Silence” at the Pasadena Playhouse, today; “All’s Well That Ends Well” at the Globe Playhouse and a revival of William Inge’s “Natural Affection” at Theatre Forty, Tuesday; an anniversary gala for Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions: “Ten Years of Shameless Exhibitionism,” at the Stock Exchange, Thursday; “Coyote Ugly” at the 2nd Stage and William Mastrosimone’s “Cats-Paw” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Friday.

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: The Actors Gang production of Adam Simon and Tim Robbins’ “Carnage,” which was launched last summer at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, recently resurfaced at the Tiffany Theatre.

The Times’ Dan Sullivan noted that it doesn’t present “a literal picture of the evangelical movement of the late ‘80s, but the play does suggest that the potential for this kind of religious fanaticism is there in America--that the idea of a jihad, or ‘holy war,’ isn’t strictly reserved for the Ayatollah.”

From Jay Reiner in the Hollywood Reporter: “To call ‘Carnage’ a satire, spoof or black comedy doesn’t really do it justice, since the work has a dramatic charge untypical of these forms. Robbins and Simon haven’t taken the easy road to skewering their subject . . . and the result is an evening more darkly unsettling than it is funny.”

Drama-Logue’s Lee Melville found “a satirical slam with a surprise punch about those Bible-thumping, self-professed ministers television has made into modern-day saviors. This highly inventive group provides a powerful yet humorous theatrical experience.”

Said the Reader’s Jody St. Michael: “The Gang, whose montage of lightly rouged character faces would make Fellini proud, performs this funny, thought-provoking piece with such passion and foaming-at-the mouth fervency, they’re literally spitting on the audience. Beware the front row.”

The Daily News’ Daryl H. Miller credited “deliciously biting observations about the business of television evangelism,” yet added that “the show’s impact would be heightened if the playwrights would do some cutting and rewriting to make the action clearer.”

The L.A. Weekly’s Maryl Jo Fox dubbed it “mysteriously bizarre and moving. Through some daring theatrical alchemy, these characters are no longer simply bold commedia dell’arte cartoons. The surreally clear mixture of dogma and actuality arouses pity for all these lost souls, some of whom may even be our secular selves.”