THEATER REVIEW : Culver City Troupe Meets the Challenge of ‘Dream’

August Strindberg’s “A Dream Play” would be an ambitious project for any theater company. Culver City’s singular productions selected it to launch the company’s first subscription season at the renovated Ivy Substation. The staging justifies this singular ambition.

Written shortly after the last turn of the century, “A Dream Play” follows the daughter of the god Indra as she wanders among humans, trying to discern why they’re so unhappy. Strindberg wanted to write a dreamscape. Boundaries of time, space and identity dissolve arbitrarily, dismantling conventional sense.

The audience should be prepared to go along with the dream. Actually, this means you should be wide awake; the play’s unexpected turns require close attention. But the director must maneuver those turns with clarity, creating a kind of inner logic in the absence of regular logic, evoking dreaminess but discouraging confusion. Allison Liddi is a capable navigator.

Ingmar Bergman, whose adaptation Liddi selected, skillfully pruned the more tendentious passages, especially in the home stretch. Some of these cut references are specifically Christian, which may or may not suit one’s beliefs, but certainly the adaptation retains an abiding compassion. And Michael Meyer’s English translation, while hardly approaching the fluency of conversational speech, seldom sounds wooden and sometimes attains a lovely lyricism.

The Ivy’s high ceiling and majestic architectural details and Ruth Judkowitz’s soundtrack help set the stage for dreaming about cosmic matters. Set designer Susan Gratch, asked to create a succession of dreamy pit stops with what was surely a skimpy budget, accomplished much with little, abetted by Adrian Jones’ lighting.

The goddess, played by Melissa Simon, is a sympathetic young woman with the human name of Agnes who never puts on immortal airs. She rescues a dashing young officer (Bill Brochtrup), who is already endlessly devoted to a mystery woman, an opera singer who keeps her suitor on perpetual hold. Brochtrup’s fervent romance is funny and touching.

Agnes is caught up in a sad marriage to a lawyer (Jonathan Read), but the dreariness is established without making the scene dreary. Later Brochtrup is ensnared in one of the all-time classic student dreams--he’s back in an elementary classroom, unable to understand the lesson even though he’s all grown up. This critic had a virtually identical dream two nights before seeing “A Dream Play.”

Anne Darragh brings solidity to the potentially hazy role of the Poet, tour guide for the gods. Bill Barker and Marc Hart play roles in drag without underlining the humor, but there is humor here--a graduation scene verges on slapstick. Everyone in the cast of 14 plays several roles.

Nothing in the play itself comes as a great revelation. But Strindberg is well served, and the production serves notice to keep an eye on the Ivy.

* “A Dream Play,” Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends April 23. $17. (310) 558-1555. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.