Uneven ‘Conduct’ Has Its Moments

In some places (like unidentified Latin American countries in the 1980s), it’s best not to ask, “Gee, honey, what did you do at work today?” In Maria Irene Fornes’ “The Conduct of Life,” a political drama about desaparecidos (the missing people who are assumed victims of a violently oppressive regime), our 33-year-old hero, Orlando (Richard Miro), is a master of brutality, a proud torturer. “I know how to work them to make their secrets pop.”

Not that his wife, Leticia (Lisa Ramirez), would ask. She politely ignores the screams emanating from the attic where Orlando rapes and sexually abuses a young orphan, Nena (Elizabeth Cueva). Leticia is further dominated by her strong-willed housekeeper (Tina Preston) and her only confidant is her husband’s colleague Alejo (Joshua Wolf Coleman).

Fornes, who reworked the ending of this one-act specifically for this presentation at the Gardner Stages, uses her characters as vessels for her sociopolitical statements, and this almost strips them of any humanity. While asking for sympathy for the defenseless poor, represented by Nena, Fornes forgets to respect them for what they are--the poor, the simple, the inarticulate. Her uneducated street waif is alternately speechless and incongruously eloquent.

Still, in this psychological study of a man’s emotional collapse and the sterile environment it creates within his household, there are singularly visceral moments and stirring performances. Cueva is moving as a rawly wounded girl searching for firm foundations for sanity. Miro manages to be both repulsive and pitiful, even as he gently croons to Nena while ravishing her. As the lisping housekeeper, Preston is funny and persuasively cunning.

Under the direction of Dona Guevara Hill, the dialogue between Miro, Ramirez and Coleman becomes stilted speeches, directed to the audience. Alejo’s sacrifice has no foreshadowing and nothing smolders among the three--only a brittle tension flatly expressed by the characters and over-explained by Fornes’ script.

* “The Conduct of Life,” Gardner Stages, 1501 N. Gardner Ave., West Hollywood. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Oct. 6. $12. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.