PERFORMANCE ART : ‘Idiot’: An Unfocused Solo Show

The first joint venture between Highways and UCLA’s Center for the Performing Arts, “The Idiot Variations,” is soporific--but perhaps that is intentionally so.

Bald and antic, with the face of a choirboy and the build of a dockworker, performance artist Rinde Eckert becomes so transported by his own artistry that he seems in a trance. In the midst of this meditative ecstasy, Eckert often forgets there’s an audience out there, a fact of which director Robert Woodruff fails to remind him.

Eckert assumes the persona of the classic village “idiot,” complete with Irish brogue, to spin his unfocused yarn, which despite a couple of amusing passages, wouldn’t rate a round of Guinness at the local pub.

A real Renaissance “idiot,” one who alludes to Keats no less, Eckert’s persona tootles and slams away at an eclectic array of musical instruments, cavorts like a tai chi master on steroids and warbles in an impressive tenor during the course of this brief but slowly paced performance piece.

There’s no denying Eckert is formidably versatile--and formidably sincere. In his sweetest, most inspired moments, he has the childlike haplessness of a modern-day Stan Laurel. However, on the whole, Eckert’s is a pointedly dull performance designed to inspire reverence because of its very inaccessibility.

Those with a wide attention span, time to kill and a taste for the experimental could find “The Idiot Variations” genuinely diverting. Those who require a modicum of entertainment value mixed with their idiotic variations might want to stay home, put their feet up and watch a local newscast instead.

* “The Idiot Variations,” Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Tonight and Saturday only, 8 p.m. $17. (310) 825-2101. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.