STAGE REVIEW : AIDS Play Finds the Right Words : The musical ‘All That He Was’ at Cal State Fullerton, which carries on a bright, witty and inclusive dialogue with anyone who sits down in front of it, is here at the right time.

The dilemma faced by the makers of a musical concerning AIDS isn’t as obvious as one would think. The problem isn’t one of putting a plague in musical terms, but of either talking to your audience or letting it in on the conversation.

The first musical on the crisis this critic saw, “AIDS! The Musical,” at Highways in Santa Monica last year, did all the talking--mostly to the choir. Larry Johnson’s and Cindy O’Connor’s “All That He Was,” at Cal State Fullerton, carries on a bright, serious, witty and inclusive dialogue with anyone who may sit down in front of it. If, as some politicians are implying, this is the “We Decade,” then “All That He Was” appears to have come along at the right time.

Of course, it is also coming along late--10 years into the epidemic. But Johnson (book and lyrics) and O’Connor (music and orchestrations) could not have come up with something like their show back then--not least because they were still in grade school. The climate at the outbreak of AIDS was clouded in shock, then anger, and though the sky hasn’t cleared since, a sense of AIDS’ ghoulishly democratic tendencies has settled in.

And while the 29-year-old man (called, in the book’s refreshingly archetypal style, “Man,” and gracefully played by Jim Gray) at the center of the show is gay, his affliction and death affect everyone in his circle--a kind of archetypal America. No one ever says it here, but the feeling that I could be next is never too far away.

That may suggest, though, a much darker tone than this show’s zippy, ironic nature (director James Taulli clearly had a strong hand in this), where characters present themselves, then carry on crackling sung dialogues/debates that recall the buoyancy of a William Finn musical. The ideological tug-of-war, for instance, between Activist (Dyan McBride, a bit too bourgeois for a street radical) and Sister (Kari Hayter, injecting surprising touches into her Christian fundamentalist role) evolves from an argument between opposites to a joined duet by a pair of true believers.

The whole course of “All That He Was,” in fact, arches from dysfunctionalism, jealousies and misunderstandings to unsteady truces and well-earned unities. Because Johnson and O’Connor resist issuing a tract in black and white--their most caustic and pointed passages with witless doctors, bureaucrats and politicians are the show’s bubbliest lampoons--the dramatic grays produce an honest, unmannered reconciliation (particularly affecting in this shift are Paris Bradstreet’s Mother, Jared Pfeifer’s Brother and Dana Meller’s Girlfriend).

The odd man out in this, too predictably, is Steven Bryce’s Father, who not only rejects Gray, but runs out on the rest of the family. To borrow from E. Junior Usaraga’s subtly clever set of platforms designed in the shape of puzzle pieces, the Father is the one piece that doesn’t fit into this world. Even Rafael Duran’s superbly voiced Friend--the bad guy who gives Gray the virus--has his side to tell. But there’s time to work out the kinks before “All That He Was” goes on to the professional life it deserves.

‘All That He Was’

A Cal State Fullerton Department of Theatre and Dance production. Book and lyrics by Larry Johnson. Music by Cindy O’Connor. Directed by James Taulli. Set by E. Junior Usaraga. With Jim Gray, Paris Bradstreet, Steven Bryce, Jared Pfeifer, Kari Hayter, Brad Hoffner, Dana Meller, Rafael Duran, Dyan McBride, Rachel Hand, Edgar Schulz and Jim Finnerty. At the campus’s Arena Theatre, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Performances Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 5 p.m. $6. (714) 773-3371. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.