STAGE REVIEW : Lost in an ‘I-Land’ of Self-Absorption

Out of the car radio came the voice of talk radio host Dennis Prager, who was answering a caller’s question: Did he miss his hometown, New York City?

No, Prager answered, and he explained why with an anecdote: While renting a car in New York a few weeks ago, Prager marveled to a friend about how he found a nearby parking spot. “Well,” remarked his friend, “at least it’s only a rented car.”

It was almost a given that the car would soon be gone. In what other city, Prager concluded, would you get such a response?

This two-minute exchange, heard en route to the Road Theatre, said nearly everything that the Road’s adaptation of Sonia Pilcer’s novel, “I-Land,” has to say about New York. In about 2 hours and 28 minutes less time.

Director Gino Cabanas and his co-adapter Joan Foley mean to create the impression of a web of urban souls, strung out on sex, stress, drugs and disappointments. The 17 men and women, from the nervous fiances Eliot and Randee (Carl J. Johnson and Foley) to writer Virginia (Francene Thomas, replacing Karla Richards) and her coke-dealing paramour Johnny (Patrick Hume), are all related by blood, friendship or accident. We see them moving on and off stage as if in the Dance of Life.

More than once, Jules Feiffer’s toxic portraits of New Yorkers come to mind, which is one reason why Pilcer’s version is so extraordinarily cliched. The title plays on the idea of Manhattan as a playground of the self-absorbed, but the play suggests that if you’re self-absorbed in New York --well, then, that’s stage material. This might explain how Pilcer, Cabanas and Foley could think that the nattering emptiness of the characters could be about something. While Feiffer instinctively unearths irony inside the most irritating airheads, the people in “I-Land” are so nearly uniform in their hysterical implosions that they sound the same.

The play is a series of monologues, most delivered at unvarying full pitch, with the speaker-screamer addressing a silent partner--who soon appears, screaming to somebody else. There’s never a real point to this style, except to reinforce the solipsism. Dialogue would obviously mitigate against this, but it would also emphasize a point New Yorkers make against Angelenos: In New York, you have to deal with all sorts of people, but in Los Angeles, you can cocoon. “I-Land’s” own formal absorption with self-absorption is more Big Orange than Big Apple.

The actors begin to resemble drawn figures in underground comics with huge, floating dialogue bubbles crammed with too many words. No point--such as raving artist Ludwig (Patrick F. Kline) denouncing the art Establishment or transsexual Lana (Susan Rome) celebrating her complex love life--is too insignificant not to be restated.

You can’t help but think about the other New Yorkers not heard from--most minorities, the very rich. Not only do they not make an appearance but somebody talked actor Glenn Gilbert into playing an Asian deli owner with slitted eyes and pronouncing his Ls like Rs in the worst Charlie Chan fashion. Of course, Gilbert also agreed. They should both be ashamed.

* “I-Land,” Road Theatre, 10741 Sherman Way, North Hollywood, Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends June 20. $10-$12.50; (818) 503-7792. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.