THEATER REVIEW : ‘Mad Dancers’ Takes a Muddled Journey

In Yehuda Hyman’s “The Mad Dancers,” part of the Mark Taper Forum’s “Virtual Theatre” series at the Taper, Too, Elliott Green (Hyman) can’t find the map that might guide him along his mystical journey.

It’s a feeling the audience may share.

Hyman’s tale is a loose and updated adaptation of “The 7 Beggars” by Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, who was a celebrated scholar and great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov (founder of Judaism’s Hasidic movement).

The adventure begins promisingly. Elliott, an IBM “administrative assistant” besieged by dreams, is lured away from his ordered life by a succession of old-timers, each with a different disability, whom he encounters in the streets of San Francisco. “You should be exactly as I am,” they say. Hyman plays all of them.

They lead Elliott to a mysterious motel, where he finds a portentous suitcase. As he opens it, klezmer music fills the air, and Elliott the clerk is gradually transformed into a dancing Hasid.

This is the highlight of “The Mad Dancers.” Perhaps best known as a choreographer, Hyman dances with fierce abandon. It’s like watching Clark Kent become Superman, only this is a Superman with payess (the curly locks at the side of the head worn by many Orthodox Jewish males).

Unfortunately, most of the play follows this high point. Complications ensue. Stories within stories within stories make this one convoluted fantasy. Not all of the stories are gripping, nor particularly distinctive. Symbols clash.

Elliott has one big problem with his newfound attraction to his Jewish roots: how to reconcile it with his homosexuality. At one point, Elliott discusses the roots of this issue with refreshing clarity, but its resolution remains unclear.

“Dancers” is billed as a work in progress, directed by Richard Seyd. As it now stands, the second act--in which references to Ashkenazic culture are replaced by Sephardic signposts--is even murkier than the first. Two other players join Hyman on stage. The Stranger (Arnobio S. Dos Santos) uses sign language in frantic messages to the baffled Elliott. Betty (Teresa Tudury) sings in Ladino (a Sephardic language) and tells still more stories in an accent that occasionally sounds like Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Roseannadanna.

The program notes that future chapters of the same saga will explore the cultures of Yemenite, Persian, Ethiopian and Indian Jews. But Hyman might want to prune and strengthen the narrative of these first two chapters before he moves on. No one expects a mystical story to make perfect sense, but it should make enough sense on its own terms so that audiences don’t need annotated copies of the script. Right now “The Mad Dancers” calls out for footnotes.

* “The Mad Dancers,” Taper, Too, John Anson Ford Theatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood. Tonight-Thursday, Monday-May 17, 8 p.m. $15. (213) 972-7392. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.