STAGE REVIEW : ‘Absalom’s Song’ a Predictable Duet : But Selaelo Maredi’s two-character South African play at LATC is nonetheless a fine companion piece for Athol Fugard’s ‘My Children!’ at the same venue.

South Africa is under the microscope at Los Angeles Theatre Center.

A taut little drama set in suburban Johannesburg, “Absalom’s Song,” has opened next door to the ongoing “My Children! My Africa!”

Selaelo Maredi’s two-character play doesn’t have the dimensions of Athol Fugard’s tragedy, but it does offer something that’s missing from “My Children!”: a character who embodies the racism that created and now prolongs South Africa’s agony.

Her name is Lynette Bloomfield. She’s wealthy, single, childless, and apparently runs some sort of business, though we don’t learn anything about it. We see her only at home, interacting with her black servant Absalom Magkato.

Lynette thinks of herself as one of “the good whites.” But we know better, even from her first lines, when she berates Absalom for a minor infraction against her household rules and ponders out loud if he is “just stupid or what.”

The fact that we so quickly feel that we know better than Lynette is the play’s central weakness. It’s easy to detach ourselves from her and tsk-tsk her attitudes and actions, so obvious is the racism within them.

Not that she is Simon Legree. The narrative is structured around Lynette’s foolish attempt to help Absalom become a celebrity. She gets this bright idea when she observes him dancing around the house one morning. A friend is giving a party the next night and needs some entertainment. Why not Absalom?

Sounding somewhat like a Hollywood agent, she tells him she can make him rich and famous. He resists, but she won’t take no for an answer.

In other words, she doesn’t really listen to Absalom. It’s not surprising. This is a man who has worked for her for seven years, yet she doesn’t even know his wife is dead. She does know that his son is in the hospital, after an encounter with the police, but her concern for him sounds perfunctory, and she uses the episode to chide Absalom for his lack of parental control.

A sense of racial superiority is ingrained in everything Lynette says. It’s not surprising when Absalom’s songs turn sour.

Maredi, who left South Africa 13 years ago and only recently returned there, probably could say that Lynette is more representative of the white South Africans he knew than is Isabel, the wonderfully kind-hearted and precocious teen-ager in Fugard’s play next door. In fact, Isabel would be a rare bird in any culture, so in that sense, Maredi’s play is more realistic than Fugard’s.

For dramatic purposes, however, Lynette is too easy to dismiss. The final confrontation between her and Absalom is cathartic, because we finally hear Absalom speaking the truth after years of repression. But it’s also somewhat predictable; Lynette is such a prickly boss that even a white servant would probably explode after seven years of her verbal abuse.

What’s not predictable is the restraint Absalom displays with his final gesture. Even at the end, Maredi keeps most of the melodrama offstage. While that final moment feels a bit anti-climactic, it does make it clear which character is the hysteric--if there is anyone who didn’t already know.

As Absalom, Sam Motaoana Phillips pulls off the difficult task of making us feel the indignity of Lynette’s attempts to turn him into “the black Tom Jones,” while simultaneously displaying the kind of charisma in his impromptu performances that demonstrates why Lynette got her idea in the first place. It’s a performance that crackles with vitality.

Maggie Soboil’s Lynette looks ultra-white, with her page-boy icy-blonde hairstyle. Garbed in stylish red and black by Timian Alsaker, she is quite a flamboyant spectacle as she dashes around trying to organize Absalom’s career. From the spectator’s point of view, her flash partially compensates for her opaque soul. Soboil keeps us watching.

Ann Bowen directed this brisk duet with appropriate dispatch. Its limitations don’t prevent it from being an excellent companion piece to the thundering drama next door. It would be fascinating to watch Fugard’s Mr. M coping with Maredi’s Lynette . . . perhaps on one of LATC’s other stages?

* “Absalom’s Song,” Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, Tuesdays through Sundays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends April 21. $22-$27. (213) 627-5599. Running time:1 hour, 55 minutes.

‘Absalom’s Song’

Sam Motaoana Phillips: Absalom Magkato

Maggie Soboil: Lynette Bloomfield

A play by Selaelo Maredi. Director Ann Bowen. Sets and costumes Timian Alsaker. Lights Douglas D. Smith. Sound Jon Gottlieb. Stage manager Danny Lewin.