STAGE REVIEW : Trysting With Art-Theater at a Hollywood Motel

Call it Walk-Through Theater. In “Tamara,” we stroll around a mock Italian villa. In “Peep Show,” we troop through an actual L.A. motel.

The motel is the Courtesy Inn on North Highland Avenue, just down the street from “Tamara.” We gather in the courtyard at 8 p.m. and are divided into groups of a dozen each. We proceed to the vacant top floor with our group leader. At a signal from director Reza Abdoh, each group is admitted to a different room to see what’s happening inside.

When the events in the room have played themselves out, which takes about 25 minutes, the door opens and we proceed to the next room. And so on, until we have visited six rooms--not in the same order. A “coda” on the sidewalk ends the evening.

The show runs a bit long, but it doesn’t demand unusual stamina from the viewer, unless he is stuffy about sitting on a motel bed with people he doesn’t know. One would also have to be stuffy to object to “Peep Show’s” occasional glimpse of an uncovered breast, or whatever. This is definitely art-theater.

Too much so for the hyper-realists in the crowd, among them, me. I was hoping that the piece would deal with those things that might actually be said and done within the various cells of an American motel, played in real time, with the viewer’s presence either ignored or (which would really be interesting) acknowledged.

Maybe somebody else will do that piece. “Peep Show”--written by Abdoh and Mira-Lani Oglesby--gives us a dream motel, the furnishings absolutely real, the events strange.

In one room, Jeane Kirkpatrick (Beatrice Manley) is giving an interview to a female reporter who seems to be coming out of her dress. In the next room, Brigitte O’Shaughnessy (the Mary Astor character in “The Maltese Falcon”) grapples with Sam Spade, in between sighful calls to her real beloved, Dr. David Viscott.

Down the hall, some shady William Burroughs characters plan a caper, or a movie about one, while in another room we hear of a conspiracy against the human race by our so-called friends, the dolphins.

Elsewhere, Dr. Gene Scott lectures the young Hamlet on the divinity of Christ, and female Siamese twins (one white, one black) do a tap dance for their bedridden mistress.

Those are just the high points. We can see that the creators of “Peep Show” have read Burroughs and Genet, that they are both amused and aghast at the grotesqueries of the American right and that they are interested in the various ways that information gets into our heads--whether by telephone, radio, TV, print, word of mouth or old movies. They’re especially fond of the latter.

That’s fun, and none of the six plays goes on beyond the limit of tolerance. While singing “These Bones Shall Rise Again” at the coda, however, the viewer is not sure that these bones have come together into a riveting theater experience.

Or even--which is odd--a particularly different one. We know we’re in a series of actual motel rooms. (You can’t get any more real than the Courtesy Inn.) But the feeling is of being ushered into a new performing space, where we sit down (if we’re lucky) and see the actors go through their predetermined paces.

The aesthetic is exactly that of traditional theater, and our allegiance goes to the actors who know their craft, particularly Beatrice Manley as Kirkpatrick. This isn’t a cheap-shot caricature, but a real attempt to get into the mind of that fascinating lady, and the half-hour is over before you want it to be--which is not the case with all these pieces or all these actors.

I also admired Edwin Gerard’s rapid-fire rant as he convicted the dolphins of crimes against humanity. It’s incredible to think that the actor had to go through this taxing spiel five more times for the other groups that visited his room. Gerard deserves battle pay.

Nobody, doubtless, is getting paid for this gig, including Abdoh. It’s a labor of love, and the company certainly isn’t overcharging for it: Tickets are only $5. As a theater experiment, however, its results are inconclusive. Except for this: When a scene offers you the choice between watching Billie Holliday on TV monitor or a young actor live--Billie wins.

Plays at 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 2011 N. Highland Ave. Tickets $5. 656-8432 or 396-7536.