THEATER REVIEW : After Nude Scene Flap, Moffett Still Taking on Challenges

Joel Moffett is a young guy with some moxie. A few weeks ago he challenged Chapman College to stage a play he wrote, “The Coloring Box,” with a nude scene intact. Although administrators refused, he made his point--loudly and publicly--that the stage should be a haven for free expression.

A production directed by Moffett of “The Adding Machine,” Elmer Rice’s expressionistic play from 1923 about the effects of a mechanized society on one of its drones, indicates that he has some imagination. At Chapman’s Waltmar Theater through Sunday, it finds him taking several vivid chances.

Some of them work, most don’t. But there is no disputing that Moffett is a 21-year-old to keep an eye on. Take, for instance, the way he introduces us to this tale about Mr. Zero and his bleak world. Instead of simply having an usher lead you to your seat, Moffett has his barking actors (imagine a battalion of bespectacled Harold Lloyd clones, only without the laughs) assign you a number, then take you up and down corridors trimmed in black and computer print-out paper until you reach the rear of the theater.

There, an actress runs a “probe” in front of you (checking for what? Radiation? Bad vibes?), before finally pointing to the folding chairs on a dark, raked platform, an integral part of Scott Hall’s claustrophobic, industrial-looking set. Everyone instinctively keeps quiet: There is a sense that you are being watched and, in fact, the actors berate anyone who gets out of line during the intermission.

Sure, it is pushy. But Moffett is trying to create a totalitarian environment that is in keeping with Rice’s subject matter, and he succeeds at that. But this opening gambit also underlines the failings of his approach: there is a youthful clumsiness here. Moffett’s attempts at insight and artiness tend to mesh in an unsophisticated way. It is the work of someone who is sharp but, well, young.

Further signals of this unsteadiness are in his use of cliched images and styles. Automaton-like minions goose-step about the stage, and authoritarian figures often have biting German accents. At one point, the cast choruses in a vacant, monotone hum, a device that has been used too many times in too many “futuristic” movies and plays.

Other patches are nonsensical, or not fully delineated, as when the actors respond in unison with laughs or smirks to Mr. Zero’s racism. Is it his bigotry that they find ridiculous, or his implied feelings of guilt at being a bigot? It is unclear.

To Moffett’s credit, he makes Zero’s story reasonably accessible. We have a pretty clear idea why this man, upon learning that he has been replaced by an adding machine, reacts by murdering his insensitive boss. A dim nobody with a harridan for a wife, sexual frustrations aplenty and a feeling of moral emptiness, he is just the type to reach a violent flash point.

Moffett’s treatment of Zero’s subsequent execution (Moffett cleverly avoids the electric chair by having a shrouded figure do away with Zero via an electrified handshake) and wanderings in the netherworld make good use of Rice’s surreal writing. His direction of Andrew DeAngelo, in the role of Zero, might have had more layers. But the portrayal is nonetheless impressive in its combination of an Everyman sort of insignificance and simmering outrage over that insignificance.

Still, Moffett lets it all get away from him in the last scene when Zero learns of his destiny (poor Zero is told that he is stuck on a reincarnation treadmill, doomed to repeat his lowly existence). It is the weakest part of Rice’s play, and Moffett decides to work it for chuckles, which runs contrary to much of what has come before. And in a strange piece like “The Adding Machine,” consistency is crucial.

‘THE ADDING MACHINE’

A Chapman College production of Elmer Rice’s drama. Directed by Joel Moffett. With Ben Nichols, Dave Janssen, Hiro Zeoli, Curin Benbow, Andrew DeAngelo, Amy Bradley, Susan Copeley, Giovanna Brokaw, Clayton Halsey, David Nielsen, Chris Westfall, Malicka Cox, Mark Highleyman, Kathy Munson, Mark Holte, Kay Borneman, Daryl Harper, Karla Frizler, Kirk Scott and Miira Ojanen. Set by Scott Hall. Lighting by Ingrid Thronson. Costumes by Nola Carson-Weiss. Plays today through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Waltmar Theater at 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. Tickets: $3 to $5. (714) 997-6812.