Theater Review : Strindberg Meets Hollywood in ‘Dream Play’

Los Angeles has seen two stagings of August Strindberg’s “A Dream Play” in the last two months, plus a festival of Strindberg’s one-acts. Will Hollywood snap up this guy any week now?

Probably not. “A Dream Play” is very much a dream, and very much a play--that is, it’s most at home in a non-literal medium, where the spectator can get a close-up look at the fantastic odyssey of the daughter of the god Indra, as she checks out what it’s like to be human.

Nevertheless, Manfred Flynn Kuhnert’s resourceful staging at Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Theatre 4 brings “A Dream Play” surprisingly close to Hollywood. The opera house of the original becomes a movie studio, and the studio’s unattainable diva becomes Marilyn Monroe, pursued avidly by a baseball player named Joe--presumably DiMaggio, though last names aren’t used.

Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” also makes a couple of appearances. In keeping with the theme of the play, the spell of her rainbow doesn’t last; her fate becomes particularly poignant. Sibel Ergener plays Marilyn, Dorothy and several other characters.

When Indra’s daughter (Julia Pearlstein) becomes a housewife, it’s to the theme song of “I Love Lucy,” and her nagging maid is named Ethel. Another character is dressed like Charlie Chaplin.

It’s not that the entire play becomes one long comment on “the dream factory.” It retains its more generalized view of the heartbreak of humanity’s fate. Ben Decter’s lush score and the uncredited choreography help create a fine sense of the bittersweet.

Kuhnert’s text editing eliminates a few interesting moments early on but then prolongs some of the later scenes--conversations between Indra’s daughter and the poet (Jon David Weingand). Weingand--tall, lean, dashing but with a bohemian poet’s world-weariness--responds with a magnetic performance that keeps the last part of the play watchable. But, all things considered, those speeches could take further trimming. They become repetitive and anti-climactic.

Kuhnert also designed the set--a splashy, colorful creation with an upper level that’s initially unseen, only to appear in a literally heavenly moment. It’s complemented well by June Czerwinski’s costumes. Many of the actors were trained at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., and most of them are quite skilled.

* “A Dream Play,” Los Angeles Theatre Center Theatre 4, 514 S. Spring St., Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7:30 p.m.; July 10, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Ends July 10. $10-$15. (310) 281-1123. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.