O.C. STAGE REVIEW : ‘Lie of the Mind’ a Surreal Study of a Fitful Family

Sam Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind,” in a potent Orange County premiere at Saddleback College, takes us once more to the terrain of the playwright’s customary obsession--the American family, with all its disturbing emotionalism in high relief.

From “The Curse of the Starving Class” to “True West” to “Buried Child,” Shepard has fixated on the bonds of bloodlines, on how that special intimacy can become a twisted, outrageous, sad and harrowingly funny thing. It’s only Shepard’s humor, perhaps the blackest around, that keeps his reflections from being impossible to stomach.

Even so, “A Lie of the Mind” will be difficult for many to digest. This long three-acter doesn’t offer much in the way of plotting; little happens on the surface, and the dialogue moves with a deliberate dreaminess, like disembodied heads speaking in a nightmare. Director Patrick J. Fennell emphasizes this aspect of the play by having his strong cast keep things fairly clamped and internalized, even surreal.

Along with the remoteness, the drama’s violence also can unsettle. Jake (Roger Manning) has beaten the hell out of his wife, Beth (Dana P. Crouch); the first we see of her is from a hospital bed where she is bandaged and babbling about what has happened. The violence, and Jake, have left her insane. And Jake is near crazy, himself--drawn to her like a beacon, and unable to reconcile the violence he’s done.

Shepard reels us in through a powerful evolution of scenes. The initial moments, nicely blocked by Fennel, find Jake talking about his predicament from a highway telephone booth, an immense moon glowing overhead. It’s a stark setting, underscored by the distant backstage position of the booth and Kevin A. Cook’s iridescent lighting.

Right off, we know Jake is a dangerous, desperate and completely isolated man. From there, we get inklings of his psychological makeup and the links between him, his family and Beth’s. Our sympathy is with Beth as she mouths her apparent incoherencies, both comic and tragic, that actually reveal the most about the play. But we also feel for Jake.

These contradictory impulses fuel our attachment to “A Lie of the Mind” and keep us questioning the nature of the family’s involvement, its interactions, and the impossibility of resolutions: Shepard’s most intuitive grasp of the family is his realization that nothing is ever truly resolved. He has been criticized for his plays’ lack of tidiness, but his strength in “A Lie of the Mind” is in not capitulating to the easy fix. There’s little settled in this fitful drama, but that’s OK. At its end, we know there’s trouble ahead, plenty of it. These people aren’t going to forget each other or go away.

“A Lie of the Mind” is not without flaws, the usual Shepard errors: His ultra-naturalistic orientation can at times lead to unnatural contrivance. This is particularly obvious in the third act during the exchanges between Beth’s nasty family, especially her mother and father (Linda Yeazel and Carlos Romero) and brutal brother (Jay Skyler Wells). This is when the play is the most sardonically humorous, but it doesn’t always seem genuine.

The acting, until the over-amped last act, moves us with its authenticity. Fennel’s cast is able, but Manning and Crouch stand out, as they should. With the stripped, empty humanity of burnt-out, beat-up cases, they convince us of what these two people have lost, and still have at stake.

Even with Shepard’s comic touches, we can’t forget how bleak their world is--a point underlined by Wally Huntoon’s somewhat barren sets depicting the separate homes. Then there’s that hanging moon that keeps floating in, not a vision of hope and beauty, but a symbol of desolation and yearning.

‘A LIE OF THE MIND’

A Saddleback College production of Sam Shepard’s play. Directed by Patrick J. Fennell. With Roger Manning, Jose Lambert, Dana P. Crouch, Jay Skyler Wells, Cathryn Lang, Robin West, Carlos Romero and Linda Yeazel. Sets by Wally Huntoon. Lighting and sound by Kevin A. Cook. Costumes and makeup by Charles Castagno. Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. at the McKinney Theatre, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Tickets: $6 to $7. (714) 582-4656.