THEATER REVIEW : Subdued Tone in Tanner’s ‘Diaghilev’

With stage credits stretching back for decades and ranging from London’s West End to Broadway and beyond, British actor Tony Tanner epitomizes the term “old trouper.”

His stock-in-trade, judging from his extensive resume, is comedy, the kind with a music-hall bent.

Unfortunately, in his one-man show “Diaghilev” at West Coast Ensemble, Tanner brings little of his comedic abilities to bear.

Not that one expects a play about the great Russian ballet impresario to be camp. Flamboyant, yes. This is an oddly subdued Diaghilev who speaks to us from beyond the grave. The afterlife, he is pleased to inform us, is a lot like an opulent hotel room in Venice. In this antechamber to the unknown, Diaghilev reminisces about his life, career and great love--the virtuosic ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky.

Tanner, who wrote the piece and directed himself in it, has an impeccable Russian accent and formidable poise. However, it’s as if someone turned down the energy level on his performance. Only occasionally lively, Tanner drifts into lulling, virtually whispered cadences that in combination with the dryness of his material have a decidedly soporific effect.

At one point, Diaghilev laments, “I can’t do anything.” Always the dilettante, never the artist, Diaghilev had the unparalleled ability to recognize and nurture talent--luminaries such as Cocteau, Picasso, Stravinsky, to name a few. Of course, Diaghilev’s greatest find was Nijinsky--but Tanner devotes the lion’s share of his show to a chronological narrative of Nijinsky’s stellar rise and sad decline into madness. Continually bemoaning his lost love, Tanner’s Diaghilev is annoyingly woebegone.

A bit more bombast, a few fresh anecdotes, and a lot more cheekiness would go far toward waking up this somnolent production.

* “Diaghilev,” West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov . 30. $14. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours.