STAGE REVIEW : An Intriguing Duo From California Repertory

California Repertory Company, at Cal State Long Beach, is trying to find out if art really echoes life. Or, to be more precise, if art echoes art echoing life. Their answer is a little confusing.

Cal Rep’s method is to present a production of Shakespeare’s “Othello” in repertory with a Czechoslovakian drama, “Night Rehearsal,” about a theater company preparing a production of “Othello.” The latter was developed by Czech National Theatre’s Laterna Magika, written by Antonin Masa, and translated by Gene Maly (English adaptation by N. C. Sorkin and Howard Burman) for this American premiere.

The problem arises in the fact that the two plays have different directors. Although the actors portraying the characters in the Czech play play the same Shakespearean roles in the full “Othello,” which is staged by G. L. Shoup, the tragedy of the Moor is dealt a fatal blow. The “Othello” is nowhere near the passionate work promised during the grueling early morning rehearsal in Masa’s play.

Othello himself (Gordon Pinkney) is stiff, and although he reads the poetry well, he rarely rises above just that, reading it on one note in his deep, rich, glistening basso. A Shakespearean actor of much capability, Gary Armagnac is a Iago at odds with Shoup’s pedestrian vision, too contemporary and detached from his evil intents.

Kimberly Seder (Desdemona), Penelope Miller Lindblom (Emilia) and Russell Schmid (Cassio) do well, but the others seem to lack the insight to ring the Bard’s bell. Shoup hasn’t done much to fire their insight, or ease with the text.

The promise of a better “Othello” is at the core of Ronald Allan-Lindblom’s direction of “Night Rehearsal.” The rehearsal’s director Jonah (Ashley Carr) is a brooding genius of the theater, making a brief comeback with this production, like Broadway’s Jed Harris, violent, intuitive and uncompromising. His daughter Allie (Seder) is playing Desdemona, and also having an affair with the married actor playing Othello (Pinkney).

It is Jonah’s chilling emotional manipulation of these two and the others in the cast that bodes well for the presumed passion of their volatile “Othello.”

Jonah is the old-line theater persona in this politically significant play, and Carr puts an emotional torch under Jonah’s passion. But the old line is being challenged by new thought, epitomized by Jonah’s “gofer.” The gofer, a young man barred from the theater but ever present to undermine what he perceives as Jonah’s passe vision, is played with urgent rebelliousness and sure humor by Blake Steury in one of the evening’s best performances.

The rest of the cast, particularly Armagnac, Schmid, Seder and Gregory Mortensen as Simon (the actor playing Brabantio at the rehearsal), is more comfortable in this environment. The temptation of actors overplaying actors is avoided in Allan-Lindblom’s inventive staging.

The surface Americanization of the play doesn’t hide the fact that it is at heart about the theater of Eastern Europe, and that its political insights are those of a world that has since awakened to the play’s message. It’s still a message to remember.

“Othello” and “Night Rehearsal,” California Repertory Company, 7th St. and E. Campus Drive, Long Beach. “Othello” plays Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; also Wednesday, Friday, Oct. 31, 8 p.m.; Wednesday, 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 13. Tickets $8-$14. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes. “Night Rehearsal” plays Thursday, next Saturday, Oct. 30, 8 p.m.; Today, 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 14. Tickets $10-$14. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes. Call for Nov.-Dec. schedule for both productions, (213) 985-5526.