STAGE REVIEW : ‘American Relations’ Serves Tidy Tidbits

It’s been 10 years since J. Paul Porter’s “Trilogy Blue” played the Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre. That striking collection of one-acts made enough of an impression to last at least the decade. One would have expected a full-length play by now.

Yet what we get from Porter at the Attic Theatre (courtesy of The Ensemble, a subdivision of the Shire Entertainment Group) is--yet again--an uncommon set of three one-acts. Porter, who now lives in New York, expects a pair of full-length works by him (“Manhattan Story” and “Madman King”) to be done Off Broadway this fall. Los Angeles meanwhile will have to content itself with more hors d’oeuvre : Caviar canapes, served on paper plates--or gourmet playlets austerely presented, which is better than the other way around.

The continuing evidence at the Attic, where Jeff Carey has nimbly staged Porter’s “American Relations,” is that Porter is a highly talented playwright who does not have one eye firmly focused on the movies. His pieces are constructed for the stage in a way that makes them useless to the camera.

“Thirty Years in Thirty Seconds” does exactly what the title says. It compresses decades into mini-seconds, doing it rapidly and repeatedly, contrasting the moods of each 10-year span via three sets of Johns and Marys.

Predictably, your ‘60s’ John and Mary are a spaced-out earth-mother (Marla Cotovsky) and her flower child companion (Allen Douglas); their 1970s’ counterparts are self-involved me-generation types (Gary Page and Denise Ragan), while the ‘80s John and Mary are in the Ivan Boesky “greed is good” mode or the full-blown yucky yuppie tradition (Vance Valencia and Maria Velilla).

What distinguishes the piece is the manner in which the back-to-back trialogue pits visions and attitudes in brisk elliptical statements. They broadly sketch a rich and often amusing array of silliness and social comment.

(“I know who I am” spout the ‘60s; “I think I know who I am,” echo the ‘70s; “My possessions tell me who I am,” blather the ‘80s. Similarly, we get “God is . . . (a) No. 1, (b) a woman, (c) a very big success story . . . “ But “Face it, we’re with it ,” emerges in a triumphant chorus at the end).

Porter apparently can’t stay away from depicting the silliness and ambiguity of certain patterns of American life. With “I’ve Got Mine,” the second play, he plugs into ‘80s corporate and sexual competitiveness with a nod to Eugene O’Neill and Steven Berkoff.

Crandall (Peter Dryden) and Elizabeth (K. C. Marelich) are attorneys vying for a partnership in the firm. They exchange platitudes while their alter egos (Martin Dunn and Jessica Giorgini, respectively) are having neurotic seizures and a verbal knock-down-drag-out on the sidelines.

Porter doesn’t pull it off quite as richly as Berkoff in “Kvetch” (which just entered its third year at the Odyssey), but he does it better than O’Neill in “Strange Interlude.” Of the three plays in this evening, however, “I’ve Got Mine” is the least original.

In “Everyday Relations,” which closes the evening, Porter combines his devices. Bernie (David Alan Graf), Dick (Brian C. Jauregui) and Edwards (Allen Douglas again) are briefcase commuters riding the evening subway. When it breaks down in Harlem, so does rationality. The spoken and unspoken byplay among supposedly intelligent middle-class men is a shambles of mindless bigotry among Jew, Gentile and black.

Porter revels in layering. He loves presenting image upon image upon image, with each one offering yet another facet of a central point--something director Carey understands well. As much here as in “Trilogy Blue,” Porter’s plays are marked by a sly, abstract theatricality and artful conceit.

The actors of this Ensemble range from adequate to good. Carey’s low-budget staging is simple to the point of plainness, with nitty-gritty basic sets (cubes, backboards, tables, chairs) and lighting best described as early providential. But it works.

For a writer with such a penetrating mind, it’s clearly time to move on. Porter must graduate from tantalizing tidbits to full course dinners. Full-length plays beckon, and if New York half likes what he does this fall--who knows? We might even see one of his longer pieces come our way.

Performances at 6562 Santa Monica Blvd. run Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m., until June 5. Tickets: $10; (213) 666-1427.