‘Pigboy’ Works a Bit Too Hard

Genius may be 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration--but when it comes to acting, it’s a 50-50 split. Besides dedication, discipline and hard work, really finely tuned acting requires innate talent, not to mention a certain obliquity. When the audience can see the wheels churning behind the delicate machinery of invention, the result can be deadly.

“Rick Hall is Pigboy,” a solo show loosely derived from Hall’s childhood on an Illinois farm, hoes a hard row throughout its present engagement at Bang Theater. It’s not that Hall’s crop of rural eccentrics doesn’t hold our interest. Farm community personages like Roger “Snout” Tucker, who considers the removal and disposal of dead farm animals a lofty calling, are novel in the extreme, and have the potential to be genuinely amusing. It’s just that Hall, a veteran of Chicago’s Second City, portrays his home-grown characters with such conscientious laboriousness that we are exhausted on his behalf. Here, the perspiration behind the inspiration is all too evident.

Smoothing down Hall’s grimacing intensity should have been a simple affair. However, director Barbara Wallace (Peter Burns staged the Chicago version) fails to remind her talented performer of the virtues of offhandedness. Hall’s wife, Laura Hall, composed and performs the show’s lively and well-integrated score.

* “Rick Hall is Pigboy,” Bang Theater, 457 N. Fairfax, Los Angeles. Saturdays only, 8 p.m. Ends May 31. $7. (213) 653-6886. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.