STAGE REVIEW : ‘Limo’ Takes Dark Ride Into Hauntings of Street People

You’ve seen them on the streets, lost souls who argue with a world that maybe never existed, screaming obscenities at devils that haunt the air around them. These are the “talkers.” What brought them to this? What took the real world away and left a nightmare?

One answer is at the core of Mark Nassar’s “Mayor’s Limo,” at American New Theater in Hollywood. The play is flawed, and some of it is a bit simplistic, but the figure at the center of it is deftly drawn and not a little frightening. As the shadows that hide Banzai’s past are peeled away, the guilt that has eroded his soul becomes our guilt for creating a society that let it all happen.

Banzai is a “skid,” a street person, content to wander Manhattan in a formless haze. Unfortunately for him, he wanders one day into a demonstration by other skids and makes the mistake of urinating on the mayor’s limo. During a quick trip to the 9th Precinct station house, bits of the emotional string that hold Banzai together begin to unravel.

All the performances are on the nose, including Fannieta Belae as a friendly hooker and Annie Cerillo as a Village Voice reporter.

As the three police officers who handle Banzai, Bill Drastal, Vincent Floriani and Michael Rapposelli are particularly believable when Banzai gives a clue to his past, and they typically insist that an all-county high school halfback would never wind up on Skid Row. He savagely attacked two arsonists who burned his house and killed his whole family, but the cops admit they would have slaughtered the guys themselves.

Yet the written image of these cops doesn’t always ring true. Would they send out for beer and hamburgers to entertain their prisoners? Would they attack their career-conscious captain (Shep Sanders) for wanting to hold Banzai only to impress the mayor and guarantee the captain’s promotion? We doubt it. These are the kind of cops we used to think existed: fun-loving guys, full of understanding and dedicated to helping the public. Maybe on “Barney Miller.” Not in real life.

These images soon fade. What remains is the icon of Banzai, the diagram of his destruction, not by his demons, but by image-conscious officials, by media manipulation and the ambition of would-be friends. They are what finally set loose Banzai’s demons. In making his private world public, they sever the thin thread that connects him with reality.

Playwright Nassar, who co-created and played the lead in “Tony and Tina’s Wedding,” also plays Banzai. He has written a flashy role for himself, but he succeeds in ignoring its flash and digging deeply into its flesh. His Banzai has rich remnants of a sense of humor and a keen intelligence. Nassar lets us look inside Banzai as he vanishes into darkness, and it’s scary.

“Mayor’s Limo,” American New Theater, 1540 N. Cahuenga, Hollywood; Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends July 14. $12; (213) 960-1604. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.