STAGE REVIEW : ‘Ba-shing’ Flat, Fails to Intelligently Address Gay-Bashing : At its best, Orange Coast College production is more of an odd-couple comedy. When it comes to feelings, the play is all talk.

“Ba-shing,” a new play written and directed by David Scaglione at Orange Coast College, purports to address the subject of gay-bashing--unprovoked physical attacks on gays that often end in murder. Two such events are plotted into Scaglione’s script, but for all that, this play is not about gay-bashing.

In its better moments, it’s an odd-couple comedy about two lovelorn roommates, one a gay male named Russell, the other a heterosexual female named Constance.

Russell, who has been living in his car since the demise of his latest love affair, charms Constance into accepting him as a roommate. The apartment is in a seedy neighborhood, and Constance has just split from her live-in boyfriend, but Russell says he is desperate, as indeed he must be. Less than a week has passed before the local thugs are harassing him as he comes home from work.

The roommates get along famously from Day One, and in no time Russell is obligingly answering all of Constance’s inquiries into the intimacies of gay relationships. Although she is a veteran of romance herself, Constance is amazingly innocent, not to say rude, in her wonderment about Russell’s private life. But Russell is ever ready to enlighten and reiterate his credo that gay people are just like everyone else.

There’s a lot of talk about feelings, but not much genuine feeling is generated on stage. As Russell and Constance, Bryan Luterman and Aimee Townsend emulate the TV school of acting, which mistakes naturalness for character and behavior for passion.

There’s a lot of talk in general, but nothing happens because the roommates’ relationship never develops. They meet, and they’re bosom buddies before the scene is over. For the rest of the play, Russell confesses at length about the challenge of gay life, and Constance listens. Any salvageable sense of their growing intimacy is counterfeited under Scaglione’s anemic direction.

There are some funny lines, often at the expense of the drama the playwright is claiming to investigate. The terrors of the world outside the apartment, and they are legion, are never invited into the relationship until the end of the play when Russell is mauled by “friends” from work and returns to Constance bloodied and determined to flee.

As far as the bashing issue goes, all intelligent address of the subject evaporates when the audience is asked to believe that Russell will not run home to Mama because Constance needs him there to smash cockroaches for her.

‘BA-SHING’

An Orange Coast College Repertory Theatre Company production of David Scaglione’s drama. Directed by David Scaglione. With Aimee Townsend and Bryan Luterman. Performances today and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday matinee at 3 p.m. at Orange Coast College’s Drama Lab Theatre, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $4 advance, $5 at the door. Information: (714) 432-5880.