‘Pigs’ Seeks Comic Chaos in the Artist’s Mind

Richard Foreman has earned the right to be self-obsessed, God knows. He is a longtime master of exotic, nonlinear theater. Surprising images and funky humor lighten his dense meditations about perception and make them entertaining and even endearing, despite occasional disorientation techniques such as bright lights and loud gunshot sounds. But “Pearls for Pigs,” the New Yorker’s first piece to travel to this coast, feels self-indulgently long-winded, despite the fact that it is short and a satire on self-indulgence.

In “Pearls for Pigs,” at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse only until Sunday, Foreman explores his ambivalence about making theater. Certainly Angelenos have their own ambivalence about going to the theater and should be able to connect. But the malaise of Foreman’s main character, a manic director known as the Maestro (David Patrick Kelly), seeps into the play itself, which in the end yields a fairly unexciting harvest despite lots of comic mayhem and surreal imagery.

Foreman’s fantastic wish is to take us to a place described by the tortured Maestro, like the place you go “when you ostensibly go to sleep and something else wakes up, doing the real work.” He also wishes eloquently for an audience that perfectly understands him. So does his sad-clown assistant Pierrot (played amusingly by Peter Jacobs with the low-ebb energy of Steven Wright), who dreams of the day when “empty seats go to those who truly think about things.” While this is a sweetly poetical wish, it is also vaguely condescending, especially for audience members who are doing their darndest to follow along.

Written, directed and designed by Foreman, this is a meticulous production. In the program notes, Foreman comments on his desire to reflect and imitate “the impulsive, usually suppressed energy of the human mental / emotional apparatus.” In the play, Pierrot remarks that even if he and the other actors were to improvise, the audience wouldn’t know it. But, despite all this theoretical playfulness, “Pearls for Pigs” rarely seems actually playful, and the often vaudevillian and frantic energy of the Maestro and his assistants never seems risky or anything other than entirely mapped out.

The set, however, is a more successful picture of studied chaos, a look at the interior of the artist’s mind. Foreman’s signature strings hang in the forespace--five of them run the width of the stage, some hanging bare, others adorned with letters or a number 8. The stage itself is artfully littered. Here and there are wall sconces with small shades, poles with bloody rags, crumpled up papers, tinted photos. There are chalkboards on both sides of the stage, and in the middle an elegant small theater with curtain. Above it are masks that portray not exactly comedy and tragedy but more, say, smirking and befuddlement.

This is the theater inside the creators’ mind, the essence that Foreman imagines. But even if the set touches on a wonderful, surreal stage magic, the show doesn’t arrive there. “Believe me, all of these revelatory experiences mean something,” promises the Maestro, even though he doesn’t sound entirely convinced himself.

Kelly offers a sinister and comic Maestro, a cross between Dennis Hopper and Groucho Marx. But any interest he inspires is only surface deep. Foreman may mock the Maestro’s self-obsession--when he goes on and on about the nature of reality, his cohorts fall asleep--but it still infects the play.

The antics of the cohorts can be amusing--especially the dashing and dancing of four coneheads with padded butts wearing aprons and women’s underwear; they look like escapees from some low-rent S&M; version of the Cirque du Soleil. Amusing only at first is Doctor (Tom Nelis), who shows up in diver gear (an explorer of the subconscious) and speaks with a phony-sounding German accent, a sure sign he is the Maestro’s psychiatrist. He gets tedious as he harangues the Maestro with questions, though I liked his inexplicable walking-in-place-while-whinnying dance.

In the end the Maestro takes a martyr’s position, assuring us we don’t want to suffer from “mind attacks,” a service he happily performs for us. All he wants in return is a silent thank you “in the privacy of your own mind.” That act is, of course, up to each individual audience member. But others might identify with the Maestro’s helpers. When an authoritative voice-over announces he is going to create “a world unfinished just like the real world,” those helpers’ characters go running for cover. Revelatory experiences are in the mind of the beholder.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

* “Pearls for Pigs,” Freud Playhouse, UCLA, West L.A., today-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Sunday. $25. (310) 825-2101. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

David Patrick Kelly: Maestro

Peter Jacobs: Pierrot

Stephanie Cannon: Colombine

Tom Nelis: Doctor

Scott Blumenthal, David Cote, Yehuda Duenyas , John OgleveeLarge Male Dwarfs

A UCLA Center for the Performing Arts production. Written, directed and designed by Richard Foreman. Lights Heather Carson. Sound Michael Van Sleen. Stage manager Lisa Porter.