‘Number’ Fine on All Counts

A young Jewish playwright, adapting for the stage the true story of a teenage boy in the Warsaw Ghetto, once said she had never been able to compute the number of 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust. It was too remote, too distant, until she met the subject of her story. One person’s experience made the numbers all too real.

That’s the terrifying effect of Mitchel Faris’ “The Last Number” at Stages. It’s the story of musician Karl Linnder (Patrick Gwaltney) returning from a Gestapo concentration camp and trying to reestablish a career in Paris two years after World War II. His inability to cope with reality and the soul-crushing effect of his experience are testament to the towering tragedy of the 6 million.

The play is written with a sure sense of reality and an honesty that shines through its dramatic imagery. An impressionistic shadowy opening scene of an old man painfully raking his garden, collapsing to his knees and being gently helped away by his wife, is echoed at the end of the play.

When Linnder, unable to wrestle music out of his horn while sitting in for the last number at a Paris jazz club, also falls to his knees, his frantic wife Marta (Mo Arii) gently helps him rise and leave the stage.

Faris doesn’t sweep under his dramatic rug the other Jews who went to any length to survive, including their accusation of their own. A prewar colleague, Henri (Gavin Carlton), who reluctantly lets Linnder sit, is revealed as the one who gave him away. And a rigidly forthright dentist in the concentration camp (Frank Tryon) has no qualms about stealing ID numbers from others to keep himself from making that last journey to the death camp.

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The tragedy in the drama centers on Linnder’s lack of comprehension about the events that led him to the last moment in Henri’s club and his inability to rejoin the living. It is a heartbreaking portrait made more so by Gwaltney’s sensitive, unnerving performance, a study in aimless despair and false hope.

Insightful performances and remarkably correct dialects, under Tracy Perdue’s insightful direction, are a hallmark of the entire company.

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Carlton’s blase Henri, who tries to help Linnder bridge the gap between swing and bebop, and Arii as Linnder’s wife, willing to give her body away to save her husband and her marriage, are standouts. Carlton does double-duty with effect as a concentration camp fink. Kara Knappe is affecting as both a waitress in the club, waiting for her musician husband to turn up, and a sad inmate.

Tryon and Robert Dean Nunez are very strong in difficult roles. This is ensemble acting, a subtle blend of all the staging’s ingredients, but it is Gwaltney’s crumbling Linnder that holds it all together.

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* “The Last Number,” Stages, 1188 N. Fountain Way, Suite E, Anaheim. 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday. Ends Sunday. $10. (714) 630-3059. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Patrick Gwaltney: Karl Linnder

Gavin Carlton: Henri/Tauscher

Mo Arii: Marta

Kara Knappe: Rosalie/Karina

Frank Tryon: Dr. Blausk

Robert Dean Nunez: Rudi

Kevin Moynahan: Sgt. Axman

Ron McCamey: Jake Poul

Ken Jaedicke: Scott O’Leary

A Stages production of Mitchel Faris’ drama. Directed by Tracy Perdue. Scenic design: Kreg Donahoe. Lighting design: Kirk Huff. Sound design: Mitchel Faris. Costumes: Laura Lynn Orlow.