STAGE REVIEW : From Grand Opera to Soap Opera in Two Acts : ‘Lisbon Traviata’ fails to reach potential in Solana Beach production.

Terrence McNally’s “The Lisbon Traviata” is as rich, complex and difficult to bring off gracefully as the opera it celebrates.

The show tells of the evolving love affairs of four gay men, two of whom are platonic friends who see their lives through operatic glasses. From the first act to the second, the play seeks a subtle transition from the prose equivalent of comic opera to the throes of tragedy.

Like the music it celebrates in nearly every turn of phrase, it requires exquisite performances--no sharps, no flats, no wobbles--but acting that reveals a pipeline to the soul.

Alas, it does not get what it needs in its current county premiere at the North Coast Repertory Theatre.

The cast labors mightily, but it is not up to the standards of grand opera. The principals, three of whom should be middle-aged, are simply too young and inexperienced to plumb the depths of their characters’ fear, desperation and desire. And director Olive Blakistone, artistic director of the theater, settles for the easy laughs--of which McNally provides plenty.

Tim Irving, who plays Mendy, a funny, hysterical Maria Callas fanatic, livens and leavens the first act with some of McNally’s best lines as he considers and rejects potential lovers on the basis of their musical tastes:

“Why settle for ‘The Sound of Music’ when you can have ‘Dialogue of the Carmelites’?” he wonders, in between catty put-downs of all singers who are not Callas and are therefore less than divine.

As he and his best friend, Stephen, conclude: Soprano Eva Marton screamed. Marilyn Horne sang flat. Sills wobbled. Montserrat Caballe canceled performances.

“Maria Callis is opera,” they agree, disdaining all others as pretenders to the throne.

But, on the whole, what we are dished here is flamboyance in the first act instead of a hint of the gloomy underpinning yet to come. Instead of a mounting sense of danger in the second act, we fidget, wondering what the writer is up to next. And the reason we wonder about the writer, not the characters, is, alas, because the acting never leaps off the page and becomes real.

At the core of the story is Stephen (Daniel Wingard). In the first act, Stephen and Mendy are in Mendy’s apartment, exchanging catty barbs about operatic recordings, relating their emotional lives to librettos at every turn.

Of their own relationship that never became physical (to Mendy’s regret): “We were each other’s Pinkerton, just pretending to be each other’s Butterfly.”

But Mendy is going crazy because Stephen has a newly released pirated version of a “Traviata” Callas performed in Lisbon, at the San Carlos Opera House in Portugal, 1958. Mendy wants it--bad. But Stephen won’t go back to get it because Stephen’s longtime lover, Mike (Richard Rennoll) is there with another man, Paul (J. Daniel)--a fact Stephen is desperately trying to pretend doesn’t bother him.

This should set up the second, tragic act, the confrontation between Stephen, Mike and Paul in the apartment that Stephen and Mike as lovers had chosen to call home.

But that, unfortunately, is where the delivery loses what subtlety it had, and the grand opera crumbles into soap opera. We go from comedy in act one to the tragedy of act two to, in the end, dramatic failure--not the fault of Terrence McNally, but rather this production.

This production, by the way, does use the original ending that had been changed in the course of its New York run at the Manhattan Theatre Club to an internalized, emotional rather than physically violent conclusion. This is the same ending used at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1990.

This is a play with great potential. Sadly, the effort put forth here barely scratches the surface.

“THE LISBON TRAVIATA”

By Terrence McNally. Director is Olive Blakistone. Sets by Leslee Baren. Lighting by Sean LaMotte. Costumes by John-Bryan Davis. Sound by Marvin Read. With Dan Wingard, Tim Irving, Richard Rennoll and J. Daniel. At 8 p.m. Tursdays-Saturdays and 7 p.m. Sundays with Sunday matinees at 2 through Feb. 15. Tickets are $10-14. At Lomas Santa Fe Plaza, Solana Beach. 481-1055.