‘Scotland Road’s’ Riddled Route

A young woman in turn-of-the-century clothing is rescued from a contemporary iceberg in the North Atlantic. The setting is the present. The only word she utters is “Titanic.” Could she be an authentic survivor?

Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher weaves this riddle into “Scotland Road,” a play having its West Coast premiere at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice. Aspiring to be a nouveau Jack Finney time-warp adventure, “Scotland Road” is actually a mess. It regularly deals out surprises that aren’t surprising but instead reveal the play’s creaky mechanisms, which churn round and round and yet never get the thing going. Michael Evan Haney’s studied direction only emphasizes the play’s lumbering quality.

Thanks to Katy Selverstone, the riveting actress who plays the woman, “Scotland Road” at least has an anchor (the show is double cast; Stephanie Niznik also plays the role). Looking like a waifish Jodie Foster, Selverstone offers an otherworldliness so intense she spins utter nonsense into tantalizing mystery.

The woman is attended by a doctor (Amy Warner, who emits an air of intelligence even though her character inexplicably reads Sidney Sheldon novels; also played by Margy Moore) and is interrogated by a Titanic buff (a stiff Michael Crider; Matt McKenzie usually plays opposite Selverstone), who claims to have a personal relationship with the disaster and who is determined to find out the truth about the woman. Just who he actually is, or who the woman is, or why they suddenly locate one lone survivor of the Titanic living just around the corner (Nancy Linehan Charles/Joan Chodorow), or what the title means, are riddles eventually solved but not made to matter.

* “Scotland Road,” Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice, Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Dec. 7. $20. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours.