THEATER REVIEW / ‘STORM READING’ : A Heroic Quest : Playwright Neil Marcus paints uplifting picture of disabilities and human relations at Paseo Nuevo Center Stage Theatre.

The movements come with jerky imprecision as playwright-actor Neil Marcus maneuvers his wheelchair-bound form through the rigorous blocking required for “Storm Reading.” The words he speaks are strained and barely intelligible--until their meaning sinks in.

Then their eloquence is overwhelming.

They’re the memories, reflections and deepest yearnings of an insightful, often poetic humanist afflicted with dystonia musculorum deformans, a crippling disease similar to cerebral palsy. In Marcus’ world, placing an order at a drive-through Burger King becomes a near-mythic quest, the eventual breakthrough in communications a heroic victory.

Yet for many of us, the prospect of a lifelong struggle to control a body so out of sync with our will could easily lead to cynicism and despair.

So how come audiences at “Storm Reading” routinely leave Santa Barbara’s Paseo Nuevo Center Stage Theatre smiling and genuinely uplifted by the experience of looking directly at a reality they had trained themselves to look away from--and finding it moving, entertaining and funny?

To really understand why, you need to see it yourself this weekend when “Storm Reading” returns to its place of origin.

After touring internationally for the last four years, Marcus’ play has become the signature piece for Santa Barbara-based Access Theatre--in part, because it so completely realizes the company’s artistic mission: a theater of inclusion that fosters original works integrating the skills of performers with and without disabilities.

Yet what impresses most about Marcus has nothing to do with how he deals dramatically with the fact of disability. Rather, it is his ability to turn the various semi-autobiographical sketches that make up the play into important lessons in human relations.

“Disability is an art, a way of living that requires constant ingenuity,” he says.

And many of the work’s episodes deal with the constant demands made on that ingenuity. From Marcus’ wry perspective, we see the often ludicrous reactions to his condition--a museum guard who practically shoves his wheelchair through the exhibit, a reporter who asks, “Aren’t you using your disability as a crutch?” or a man at the Laundromat who screams, “I’m gonna help you whether you want me to or not!”

And when a train passenger sitting next to him tries to ignore him, Marcus flails his limbs all over him with utter delight.

But some of the encounters are more serious, like the time Marcus was conned into giving a thief his wheelchair in a San Francisco hospital.

Most of these oddball characters are played by Matthew Ingersoll, who parlays his training in improv comedy into uniformly excellent results.

Kathryn Voice signs the performance and also assumes some key supporting roles, including the object of Marcus’ affections in a funny-sad first meeting that’s supplemented with slide-projected thought balloons that reveal their unspoken insecurities a la Woody Allen.

Voice also performs the haunting solo segment about a car accident victim, a poet who fought her way back to functionality, despite the world’s label of brain damage, by finding “new places to store thoughts and concepts. She’s alive today because she changed her mind.”

Since its Santa Barbara premiere in 1988, “Storm Reading” has undergone considerable revision and tightening. But its rambling structure still defies many formal theatrical conventions (ironically, even director Rod Lathim once admitted some doubts as to whether there was a real show in Marcus’ material).

But Marcus doesn’t need textbook playwriting to induce an artificially crafted dramatic reality. His presence in this deeply personal work lends it the immediacy and authenticity to make his struggle ours.

Nor can we begrudge him his upbeat conclusions or his delight in life’s simplest pleasures. More than most, he’s earned them.

In the show’s central metaphor, Marcus says of people’s reactions to his muscular turbulence: “Some people hide from storms. They close their shutters and doors and blinds. They steep themselves in their own darkness and rob themselves of the tumultuous journey and its exhilaration.

“Some people, when they see my dystonic disarray, embrace the storm--their eyes light up and they rush to hug me as a long lost brother. As if embracing a storm was food for their soul.

“I can teach you . . . to read a storm.”

* WHERE AND WHEN

“Storm Reading” will be performed Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Paseo Nuevo Center Stage Theatre at Chapala and De La Guerra streets in Santa Barbara. Tickets are $12.50. For reservations or further information, call 963-0408.