STAGE REVIEW : A Valiant Effort in ‘Castles Made of Sand’

Whatever conclusions can be drawn from Joanne Gordon’s environmental staging of Robert Villanueva’s play, “Castles Made of Sand,” it gets an E for Effort. Set inside the Cal State L. A. gym and cast with the school’s drama students, professionals and inner city youths, Gordon’s production valiantly tries for the kind of group rite that the Living Theatre attempted 20 years ago.

Villanueva has written a boxing saga set to Jimi Hendrix’s music--indeed, meant to retell Hendrix’s life through the framework of sports--yet many in this production were born after the nonpareil rock guitarist died of a drug overdose in 1970. “Castles Made of Sand” proves that the ‘60s live on.

It also proves that any staging, environmental or no, still needs a play to hang on, or it drifts. From the beginning, production effects threaten to overwhelm the play. There are the speakers and the well-amped band led by guitarist Robert Lindauer--yet many voices, despite miking, are hard to make out. Various staging areas surround a boxing ring, and there is a large video projection screen overhead. Is the play going to be able to keep up with the spectacle?

Later, the concern is if there is a play here at all. Once you ooh and aah at Jim Bell’s lights, sound and set pieces, get out of your seat and follow the action around the floor, you notice that Villanueva’s language and situations have no knock-out punch. The two conceits used to frame the play--Greek tragedy’s arc of inevitability, and Hendrix’s lyrics--become less helpful as boxer Axis Castillo’s fame implodes from an excess of exposure, drugs and sex.

Villanueva plays Axis (the name comes from Hendrix’s record “Axis: Bold As Love”), and gives him just enough emotional grounding to justify our attention. But there is nothing distinctive about Axis. He travels the predictable route from street kid to punk boxer to wunderkind to champ. Only two aspects distinguish this tale from countless boxing movies from the ‘40s and ‘50s: the cloud of electronic media that descends on Axis, and a life drenched in sex.

The media dimension is carried by Bill Shick as an ultra-cynical TV commentator named Charlie Shead, who first builds Axis up into a star and then indulges in gossipy character assassinations on the video big screen as Axis’ career plummets. The initial effect works; then, like most TV, it wears thin.

So does the sex, which is done with ribald abandon. Elizabeth Stinson as Axis’ girlfriend does more cavorting and strip-teasing than singing or acting, and an entourage of skimpily clad groupies complete a kind of male fantasy gone wild. The eroticism and Gordon’s sense of humor are matched once with great athleticism, when Axis and the groupies have an orgy on a huge trampoline. (Suffice to say, this is no show for kids.)

Fitting the Hendrix songs to the material is a trick not always pulled off. A manager asks the ambitious Axis, “Are You Experienced?” Later, Axis sings about his “Purple Haze” before collapsing. But using “Manic Depression” for a key sub-plot and “Little Wing” as a crude image of lost innocence is too strained. The singing lacks Hendrix’s sinewy presence, but the score may get the college crowd curious about the acid rock master.

At 5151 State University Dr., on Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 2:30 p.m. Ends Sunday. Tickets: $2-$6; (213) 343-4118.