THEATER REVIEWS : ‘Memorandum’ Speaks to Bureaucratic Hazards : The play takes issue with officials who put the emphasis on efficiency. The Ventura College cast adds an element of fun.

An absurdist look at bureaucracy, “The Memorandum” was written 30 years ago by a man who should know from red tape: Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who, in 1990, was elected president of Czechoslovakia. And if there’s anywhere that bureaucracy runs rampant, it’s in a communist government. Or in the military. Or in education . . . well, you get the idea: Whatever its origins, the target of “The Memorandum” is universal.

The play, which runs through this weekend at Ventura College under the direction of Judy Garey, is about a company that has been ordered to adapt a newly created language for all official business to expedite efficiency.

The most common word in “Ptydepe,” we’re told, is that which translates to “whatever.” The shortest word in the language, just one letter, “is being reserved until science discovers a word more common than ‘whatever.’ ”

What those who ordered Ptydepe into use don’t seem to realize (or care) is that virtually nobody can write or speak the new language, save for a translator, a teacher and the personnel department.

Since nobody knows who ordered the language, nobody knows how to rescind the order, and nobody wants to be blamed for anything that might go wrong (sound familiar?).

Vincent J. Ugolini plays Josef Gross, the company’s humanist managing director whose efforts to combat the bureaucracy make him the ultimate victim. Simon Alvarado has the play’s choicest role, as a deputy director who seems to have a better grip on office politics than anyone else, manipulating things to his advantage with the assistance of the quiet, compliant Pillar (Eric Meeks).

Natasha Saum and Sarah P. Meaney portray secretaries. Saum’s character is interested mainly in her next lunch break, and Meaney’s has the heart of gold that most office workers would probably rather identify with.

Garey has staged “The Memorandum” and Willy Eck has designed the ambitious set in a cartoonish fashion to emphasize the machine-like nature of a bureaucracy.

Similarly, the cast reads lines in a forced, almost mechanical manner that under other circumstances might be mistaken for wooden acting.

But we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, though some of them carry this off much more effectively than others.

Everybody deserves commendation, though, for mastering the difficult Ptydepe language created by Havel for the play.

“The Memorandum” is often quite funny and certainly something different.

Details

* WHAT: “The Memorandum.”

* WHEN: Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 3 p.m.

* WHERE: Ventura College Mainstage Theater, Loma Vista Road, Ventura.

* HOW MUCH: $7 general, $5 students, staff and seniors.

* CALL: 648-8922.