‘Demonology’ Darkly Seductive

Someone is sabotaging a baby-formula company. And after watching its employees dart nervously through chilly halls and offices with stark black furniture and lime-green walls, you may think, “Well, good.”

But who is doing it? Is it Gina (Julie Jacobs), the temp with the tight skirts, or her boss, uptight Joe De Martini (Tim West)?

Kelly Stuart’s play, “Demonology,” part mystery, part absurdity, part moral dilemma and overall enigma, gets a funny, impassioned and seductive production at the Sledgehammer Theatre. The show, which premiered at New York’s Playwrights Horizons last year, played at the Mark Taper Forum in May.

Most of the seduction comes in the form of Julie Jacobs’ remarkable performance as Gina. Jacobs is sexy and funny and very fine indeed. (Her depiction of a fallen goddess in Sledgehammer’s recent world premiere “South of Heaven” almost single-handedly made the company’s convoluted rumination on the Heaven’s Gate cult worth watching.)

She plays, in essence, dual roles: the hungry temp with ambitions to better provide for her baby; and De Martini’s fantasy--seen in dream sequences--of a breast-feeding mom as vamp and earth mother. Yes, within the sterile walls of a formula factory, Gina is expressing milk to bring home to her baby. And that touches off a desire in De Martini that ultimately drives him crazy.

Under Kirsten Brandt’s crisp, stylized direction, Gina and Joe face off like boxers measuring one another up before slugging it out. West is particularly good at suggesting a slow-motion slide into madness. His brittle officiousness, which intimidates Gina at their first interview, crumbles almost palpably as he becomes increasingly obsessed with her.

By the end, her contemptuous look at him and his pitiable one at her show how fully they have changed places.

Josh Stoddard gives smarmy satisfaction as the company lech. Barbara Koller is evocatively eerie as the demon child who haunts De Martini’s conscience.

David Ledsinger’s smart set, complete with elevator and giant picture of a smiling baby face on the doors, is a key player in creating the claustrophobic fishbowl mood. Michele Short’s costumes cleverly show Gina’s graduation from cheap skirts to the dress-for-success business suit, with some fun fantasy stuff in between.

It’s a provocative and penetrating production, hard to pin down and with more than its share of loose ends, such as the answers to whodunit and whatever happened to Gina’s baby.

In the end, though, the satisfaction comes less from the result than from the process. The battles between Gina and Joe, between dreams and reality, between nature and artificial substitutes are what make this “Demonology” so fascinating.

* “Demonology,” Sledgehammer Theatre, 1620 6th Ave., San Diego. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday. Ends Nov. 9. $10-$15. (619) 544-1484. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.