STAGE REVIEW : ‘Climate’ Right for Jab at MTV’s Kids

“Nothing comes easy,” laments one of Jonathan Tolins’ characters, “especially in the current climate.”

No--but, of course, it never has been easy. It is just that most of the people in Tolins’ comedy, “The Climate,” at Theatre/Theater, are absorbing this reality for the first time in their lives.

That is because they are, like Tolins’ and his co-performer, Dyanne DiRosario, in their early 20’s, and trying to come to terms with the ‘90s. The weather has changed, and they’re caught in a downpour without a raincoat.

Tolins knows how theater has become so informed by television that it seems that many small theaters are nothing more than cheap try-out spaces for future pilots. “The Climate” becomes a response to the subjugation of Tolins’ peers to a TV world that muffles out minority points of view in one big volume blast (the production’s poster art shows a man and woman bowing under the weight of a big screen TV). Until a real culture comes along, the show suggests, the only comedy we have is a reaction to deep cable.

This may be why the evening’s only unsure moment comes in a scene in which Tolins portrays Pat Robertson--mimics, actually. While DiRosario is funny as an unlikely 700 Clubber from England, Tolins betrays his TV fan side (the mimicry is less than terrific).

Otherwise, “The Climate” isn’t about poking jabs; it’s about how funny life is when people are caught up short. Tolins structures the work as a collage of scenes, reinforced by Devin Meadows’ collage backdrops of topical icons and headlines. The play’s sneaky intelligence--which also vitally includes Susan Snyder’s highly tuned direction--ultimately connects the collage’s parts into a touching whole.

No part is more touching than the two-part “Peter and Joy,” following two friends from romantic college days to the harder demands of post-graduate life. Other scenes, taken together--a gay activist and his unlistening mother, an unemployed junk-bond huckster trying to pick up an editor at Mother Jones magazine, a female TV star being haplessly wooed back to her former theater haunts--show Tolins and DiRosario assuming the personae of an entire generation.

But “The Climate” resists wallowing in self-absorption, since it also gives us such moments as a middle-aged couple yakking away about their less-than-satisfying kids during intermission at the opera. Kids of the ‘60s obtained an unhealthy amount of identity from parent-bashing; Tolins has compassion for his progenitors.

Mature writing, to be sure, and some mature acting to support it. Whether the American climate changes, some members of the MTV generation seem to have found the off switch.

“The Climate,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends March 1. $10; (213) 850-6941. Running time: 2 hrs. 20 mins.