STAGE REVIEWS : ‘Muzeeka’ Offers Glimpse of John Guare’s Promise

John Guare’s “Muzeeka” at the Attic Theatre in Hollywood wears the patina of its age.

Written in 1968, it is a young man’s work, obvious in its embrace of popular dramatic devices of the time, and in its repudiations of mainstream society and the Vietnam War. In contrast, it bears connections to Guare’s most recent work. “Four Baboons Adoring the Sun” centers on archeological digs in Sicily; “Muzeeka’s” anti-hero is obsessed with the Etruscans.

This Moffett Group revival is therefore something of a curio. Satire by easy listening. John Argue (a winning Richard Amend) is a latter-day Woyzeck, torn by duties and choices: marriage, job (with the Music Corp. of America, creators of pervasive Muzak), fatherhood, sex, war.

Ironic placards announce scenes, and sexual fetish ranks high. But it’s the word play that predicts the future. A speech denouncing war as infotainment (“I’m under exclusive contract, I can only fight for NBC”) and one on the Etruscans’ vanishing act are as vigorous as any Guare has written since.

Elizabeth Maynard plays Argue’s wife, whom Argue may or may not love. Sue Giffin is a cold-cash purveyor of kinky sex, and Patrick Flanagan is Number Two, a fellow toiler at the Vietnam bench. All are on target. Joe Seely and Joan-Angela Hess, listed as stage hands, cunningly exceed their job descriptions.

This Obie Award-winning one-act, which had its local premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in 1968, has a certain creakiness as theater of protest. But this brisk, bare-bones staging by Gar Campbell, late of the late lamented Company Theatre, also projects a telling glimpse of Guare-to-be.

“Muzeeka,” Attic Theatre, 6562 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends next Saturday. $8; (213) 462-9720. Running time: 1 hour.