STAGE REVIEW : ‘Work’ a Promising Effort About Women, Violence

Although it’s early in his promising playwriting life, Michael Ahn seems to know the dangers of typecasting. His sizzling underground-comic-of-a-play, “The Barking Wall,” pegged him as a writer of underground comic-type plays, crossed with Marlane Meyer’s elliptical style. Nothing in “The Barking Wall” was as it seemed, and yet it was clear that Ahn knew his destination. A high-wire act, with applause at the end.

Ahn’s new play, “Side Work,” at Los Angeles Theatre Center, is also a high-wire act, but in a completely different big top. This time, things are more basic and pared down on perhaps the most stripped-down set Douglas D. Smith has ever designed. Ahn’s work is a two-character tale of released and submerged female violence with two coffee-shop waitresses--Francis (June K. Lu) trying to get over her violent past, and Letty (Jocelyn Benford) trying to get going on a violent present.

But just as Ahn isn’t about to fit a stylistic niche, he also defies what might seem natural. It’s with the wild, woolly, baroque work like “Barking Wall” that a young playwright is prone to slip and fall. It’s with the relatively unadorned, uncluttered work like “Side Work” that he should stand up and run. Yet this time, Ahn is groping through perhaps unknown territory, not at all sure of his destination.

That very unsureness can sometimes make for exciting theater. Francis appears to us at first in prison, and it’s possible--especially as Lu plays her--that she’ll return there. We like how she is trying to redefine herself, even though she can get a job only as a waitress, but every time she loses her cool, Lu and Ahn suggest that a time bomb is ticking.

Francis is a great character. It’s Letty that’s a problem. Letty used to be “a nice girl,” but somewhere along the way she’s gotten mad--and wants to get even--with men, and especially with her nasty boyfriend (who, like the coffee-shop owner and Francis’ son, is an invisible presence in Karen Kalensky’s staging). The source of her anger is the heart of “Side Work’s” feminist politics, but as it stands now, the anger is as loud as the source is murky.

Benford, as a result, comes off as struggling to handle a walking animus without a cause. Letty’s also written without smarts, unwilling to leave her boyfriend when things get rough, and strangely vague about keeping his child when she gets pregnant. Dumb rage isn’t much to hang a climax on, and that’s where “Side Work” is stuck.

But the language is often so precise to the moment, the moments so pressurized, the pressure so high at points it hurts, that the play has a reserve of theatrical juice even Letty can’t dissipate. Ahn is potent enough that he may not know his own strength. That’s a problem most playwrights would love to have.

* “Side Work,” Los Angeles Theatre Center Theatre 4, 514 S. Spring St. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Feb. 21. $10; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours.