STAGE REVIEW : ‘Dream,’ ‘Ache’: Surrealism at the Taper

The ongoing look back at plays from the ‘50s and ‘60s at the Mark Taper Forum--its “50/60 Vision” festival--opens our eyes wide with Edward Albee’s “The American Dream” and Harold Pinter’s “A Slight Ache.” These paired exercises in satire and surreality (Round 5 of 6) snap, bristle and pop.

In “The American Dream,” we are confronted by the prequel to “The Sandbox,” not in terms of the dates when the plays first encountered an audience (“The Sandbox” in 1960, “American Dream” in ‘61), but in terms of respective gestations. Albee was writing “American Dream” when he set it aside to deliver “Sandbox” on a commission from the Spoleto Festival (though it was eventually premiered in New York).

Three of the characters are the same in both plays, while the Young Man in “Dream” is a variant of the one in “Sandbox.” Director Ethan Silverman’s casting of three of the “Sandbox” actors (only one in the same role, however) lends particular resonance to this “American Dream.” Theatergoers lucky enough to catch both productions, or those attending the April 7 marathon, will get an added chuckle out of this hall of mirrors.

If “Sandbox” is Mommy, Daddy and Grandma at the Beach, “Dream” is Mommy, Daddy and Grandma at Home. Its satire doesn’t only last longer than the 15-minute “Sandbox,” it’s more raw, naked and savage.

Without belaboring the plot (secondary to intent in any case), “American Dream” deconstructs false values, unmasks familial cruelty and strips down--literally--social veneer. In Albee’s view, this is not surreality but true reality lurking behind ceremonial sham.

Passive Daddy is played this time by Alan Oppenheimer and shrewish Mommy by Teri Garr. The understated John Robert Lafleur is the Albee alter ego as the good-looking Young Man who ties off the loose ends. But the play virtually belongs to comedienne Angela Paton (the Mommy in “Sandbox”) as the hilarious Mrs. Barker--and to that stylish whippet of a Mary Carver, who continues her “Sandbox” role as irrepressible Grandma, mistress of the blunt truth and frontal attack.

With Pinter’s “A Slight Ache” we move deeper into surrealistic territory. This play, originally written for radio then transposed to the stage, is a strenuous exercise for 2 1/2 actors.

Long-married Flora and Edward, who live peacefully in the country, are troubled by a match-seller standing at the back gate of their garden. Since it’s an untraveled lane, there is no one to buy, and the seller’s silent, perpetual presence begins to disturb Edward, who sends Flora to invite him in.

But talking to the man in Edward’s study elicits no response, which increases Edward’s agitation. When Flora decides to take matters into her own hands, the stranger’s silence becomes an aphrodisiac, drawing her to him irresistibly. Inquisitors become confessors and by play’s end, Flora is installing the match seller as master of the house while Edward may well end up selling matches.

Ritual transmogrification? The revenge of the wasp they kill at the start of the play? Another exciting writer flexing young muscles? “I’ve been engaged on the dimensionality and continuity of space . . . and time . . . for years,” says Edward, for whatever it’s worth.

The piece isn’t meant to withstand literal scrutiny. Suffice it to say that, of the 11 plays seen in this retrospective so far, “Slight Ache” is among the most potent, no small thanks to Michael Arabian’s urgent yet contained direction and stunning performances from Paton and Bill Moor as the couple.

We do better to heed Pinter’s own words: “My characters tell me so much and no more,” he wrote in 1962. “Between my lack of biographical data about them and the ambiguity of what they say lies a territory which is not only worthy of exploration but which it is compulsory to explore. . . . Most of the time we’re inexpressive, giving little away, unreliable, elusive, evasive, obstructive, unwilling. But it’s out of these attributes that a language arises. A language . . . where under what is said, another thing is being said.”

Explore. Widely and at will.

At the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., Saturday, April 5, 20, 26, May 2 and 8 at 8 p.m.; May 6 at 7:30 p.m.; matinees, April 14 and May 13 at 2:30 p.m. Marathon Weekend (all 13 plays): April 7-8, 2-5:30 p.m. and 7-10:30 p.m. Ends May 13. $22-$28. (213) 972-7373, (213) 410-1062, (714) 634-1300, TDD (213) 680-4017).