‘El Salvador’ Revives Spirit of Journalists Under Fire

Although Rafael Lima’s best-known play is called “El Salvador,” it could be set in just about any dirty war zone. Lima’s subject is a corps of male journalists who cover the war, not those who fight it. Many of these men move from one war to the next, carrying some of the same attitudes and dilemmas to each new battle.

This means Lima’s play hasn’t become dated, although it’s set very specifically in 1981 in El Salvador. So director Jeff Seymour has returned to “El Salvador,” which--in 1988--was the biggest triumph of the Gnu Theatre that he ran in North Hollywood. Now at the Tiffany Theater, Seymour has once again captured the profane comedy and the harrowing intensity of Lima’s blistering one-act.

*

Unlike Oliver Stone’s movie “Salvador,” which depicted a wide swath of events as seen through the eyes of an American reporter, Lima narrowed his focus to one day in a San Salvador hotel room that serves as the bureau for an American TV network.

This joint is jumpin’. While lanky Skee (Tom Reynolds) monitors incoming bulletins for news of the latest “bang bang,” his boss John Fletcher (Carmen Argenziano) wrestles via long-distance with an estranged wife. When in doubt, Fletcher resorts to liquor, but it can’t numb the itching caused by Fletcher’s extramarital dalliances in El Salvador. Argenziano repeats the role he played in 1988, mastering every grimly comic nuance.

The new kid is reporter Brad McCutcheon (JC Mackenzie), who’s determined to file dramatic reports to New York without leaving the hotel--if he can control his digestive system. The Salvadoran diet hasn’t agreed with him.

A crew consisting of Fuller (Seymour) behind the video camera, Larry (Patrick Cochran) on sound and still photographer Pinder (Kevin Hunt) storm into the room with some fresh footage. The hubbub ceases for a moment as the men watch the horrifying event they caught on video. We can’t see the screen, but we can read their faces for evidence of what they see. It isn’t pretty.

The friction between McCutcheon and the veterans builds to an eruption, followed by an even more volcanic dispute between Fuller and Pinder. Pinder is the story’s dark prince, able to summon up eloquent descriptions of the savagery out there--and then to leap into his own brand of brutality, as seen in his treatment of a prostitute (Annette Chavez). Hunt’s resonant voice and assertive moves keep Pinder mesmerizing, even at his ugliest.

Seymour underplays his own role, saying shocking things without a sense of shock, which makes the moment when the emotion finally catches up with him all the more powerful. As usual, Seymour also designed and built his own meticulous set.

Lima’s play doesn’t say anything very surprising, but his portrait of an adrenaline-filled hellhole is hard to forget.

* “El Salvador,” Tiffany Theater, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 5 p.m. Ends Aug. 18. $25-$28. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.