STAGE REVIEW : Theatre 40 Offers an ‘Affection’ That’s a Natural

William Inge’s “Natural Affection” struck most of the Broadway critics as an off-key play in 1963. Inge was supposed to write about Kansas picnics, not about disturbed juveniles. And the violence of the last scene--where did that come from?

At Theatre 40 we can see where it comes from. Donnie (Sandor Black) can’t deal with emotion and his mother (Carol King) doesn’t want to see how troubled he is. Trip the right switch, and there could be an explosion.

We can also see that Donnie is doing his best to fit into his mother’s new life, and that she is trying hard to accommodate him, having left him to the care of others so long. Given a little understanding from her boyfriend (Richard Bonte), it might work out, at that.

Like Inge, director Lorenzo De Stefano leaves the situation open, with the occasional hint of just how volatile Donnie is. The hint can come when he’s pleased as well as when he’s angry--an observant choice on the part of actor Black. When the explosion comes, it’s not gratuitous.

This is a well-cast production. Perhaps one problem with the Broadway production was that its original cast, headed by Kim Stanley, had too much gloss for their working-class roles. Not here. Donnie could be a box boy at the grocery store. His mother needs to take off a few pounds.

Yet it isn’t a totally realistic play, as De Stefano also seems to understands. (Note the way he blocks certain scenes, pinpointing Donnie’s isolation.)

For example, the terrible couple in the next apartment (Don Paul, Cynthia Kania) verge on being grotesques--joyless swingers without a brain between them. Christmas Eve with friends like these can be as bizarre as a scene in an Ionesco play.

It’s also an admission that you don’t have any friends. “Natural Affection” speaks of the alienation of the big city (here it’s Chicago) from experience. Bleak as its characters are, we believe them, and we can generate a certain amount of sympathy for a few of them--Donnie and his mother, certainly.

Just as the play is sometimes overwritten, so the production is sometimes overacted at Theatre 40. De Stefano’s performers throw in everything they’ve discovered about the characters, rather than letting us make our own discoveries. Donnie, for instance, needs fewer twitches and his mother needs to come on less strongly to him at the start of the play. The Oedipal business gets a little comic if it’s overdone.

Not at the end, though. The final confrontation between mother and son has no false notes. On the one hand we see Donnie’s pain at being rejected. On the other, we see his mother’s justifiable fear of what might happen if he weren’t rejected.

One tragedy is averted, and another supplants it. “Natural Affections” has its flaws (that sentimental business about the orphanage), but it taps darker currents that any Inge play since “Come Back, Little Sheba,” and it might have led to a new chapter in his career, if he had had better personal luck at the time.

It’s also interesting to see it in an era that knows about dysfunctional families, genetic damage and the like. De Stefano’s production looks at this early ‘60s play from the viewpoint of the late ‘80s and reminds us that the artist senses what the scientist will later confirm.

Plays through April 20. Performances Mondays-Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Tickets $7. 241 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills; (213) 277-4221.

‘NATURAL AFFECTION’

William Inge’s play, at Theatre 40. Director Lorenzo De Stefano. Producer Carol King. Costumes Pat Wilson. Sound designer and lighting consultant Phil Allen. Additional sound designer Brad Brinkman. Props/light booth Jeanette Rovack. Sound tech Walter Lee Harrison. Makeup consultant Pauline Terry. Hair consultant Jeffrey Sacino. Stage manager Susan Slagle. With Carol King, Richard Bonte, Don Paul, Cynthia Kania, Sandor Black, Sean Faro, Rhonda Lord, David Parry