STAGE REVIEW : A Coupla White Guys Sittin’ Around Hurting

On the desk by the word processor on which this review was written was a piece of paper with a small sketch in the top left-hand corner of a tall, mustachioed cowboy and a short nun.

Above the drawing were the words: “The chances for men and women understanding each other.” In the bottom right-hand corner, “Slim and nun.”

Just another harmless funny? You might not think so if you had just come from seeing Stephen Metcalfe’s new play at the Old Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage. Metcalfe, who painted himself into a bit of a corner a few years ago with his women’s-lib play, “Emily,” is sticking to territory he knows better this time: modern males.

Still, it takes him a while to get into his subject. All of Act I, to be exact, but it’s worth it. This is a play about being friends, man-to-man buddies, and by the time it’s over we have ridden the roller coaster of a friendship between Dell (Dave Florek) and Stuart (Peter Zapp).

It’s hard to say which of them has a tougher time of it.

Stuart’s a playwright who’s finally meeting with some success. At least with his plays, if not with his women. His women keep running out, but his plays are getting done--and not only in New York basements. But it’s lonely in his Upper West Side brownstone.

Dell is a struggling actor. He’s been in many of Stuart’s plays, and now he’s in Stuart’s apartment (medium-comfortable bachelor digs as designed by Kent Dorsey). Dell’s married but he’s just left his wife, Bonnie--and not just because he had a brief roll in the hay with an assistant stage manager. It’s because Dell isn’t up to the pressures of marriage. “She’s trying to make me accountable,” he tells Stuart about Bonnie. “Everything has to be meaningful .”

Stuart’s happy to have Dell in the house. Being a writer, he spends too much time alone. It’s good to have someone to talk to, to explain feelings to. A buddy . And for a while, most of Act I, alas, that’s all “White Man Dancing” is: a pas de deux for a coupla white guys sitting around talking, throwing foam rubber basketballs into practice waste baskets, drinking juice and beer, and conjuring together (with acknowledged hilarity) a composite of the Perfect Woman.

Fortunately, reality intrudes in its relentless, inconvenient way. This is where Metcalfe takes deadly aim, propelling the play from comedy to drama, barely, but successfully, avoiding melodrama.

Beneath the joshing and the banter is, yes, the pain--Stuart’s almost intolerable sense of rejection and Dell’s insistent denial of his own immaturity. But also, though not soon enough, there is the need to deal with rude developments. These men can and can’t. When Dell finds out that Bonnie’s pregnant, they must.

It nearly capsizes the friendship but galvanizes a play that up to that point, like these guys, has done far too much dawdling.

It’s tough enough staying out of trouble with the predictability of a two-person play, but letting that first act take so long to get to its punch line is downright dangerous. Intermissions are when people leave. A pity, because those who stick around for “White Man’s” second act (not everyone did Tuesday) are rewarded. Metcalfe excels at uncompromising one-on-one relating. His inherent honesty serves him well, keeping the livelier events of Act II from falling into cliches.

Along the way he also provides “moments” for each of his characters, from such simple items as the battle royal Stuart wages on his word-eating (rather than -processing) computer, to Dell’s blow-by-blow account of a nightmare audition. But the real meat of the piece lies in the emotional milestones reached by both men.

Thomas Allan Bullard has directed with clarity and a compassionate understanding for the crippled emotions of this odd couple, but he might have been more helpful to the playwright had he insisted on a trim of Act I’s extended foreplay.

Zapp is unsettling and very appealing as the generous yet desperately isolated Stuart, but a great deal of the show’s flavor and snap stem from the contrast with Florek’s scattered, out-of-control Dell--a good guy who just can’t seem to get a handle on himself.

The strife and poignancy of the concluding scenes is sharpened by the knowledge that, life’s epiphanies aside, the course ahead will remain a mine field. What’s secured is the friendship--and the sense that these guys will somehow be there to see each other through.

Metcalfe must now secure the play by making it interesting quicker. He could cut 15 minutes out of the preamble--and another 15 by tossing out the intermission--and watch it fly.

At the Simon Edison Centre for the Performing Arts in Balboa Park, Tuesdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., with matinees Saturdays and Sundays at 2. Ends Aug. 19. $24-$27.50; (619) 239-2255.

‘WHITE MAN DANCING’

A new play by Stephen Metcalfe. Director Thomas Allan Bullard. Scenic and lighting designer Kent Dorsey. Costumes Robert Wojewodski. Sound Jeff Ladman. Stage manager Peter Van Dyke. Assistant stage manager Lavinia Henley. Cast Dave Florek, Peter Zapp.