An Enrapturing ‘Ecstasy’

Anyone who admires filmmaker Mike Leigh and his genius for mining gold from a hairsbreadth of a dramatic detail should immediately see his play “Ecstasy” at the Odyssey Theatre. In this gritty dark comedy, Leigh fashions a Machiavellian betrayal out of the theft of a bag of pistachio nuts. The play is superbly acted by a young Chicago company called Roadworks. Judging from the riveting ensemble work on display here, this company may well become to Chicago what Steppenwolf was 20 years ago.

In “Ecstasy,” director Abby Epstein creates a world that’s credible down to its minutest detail. There is high drama in the way a character puts dirty dishes in the sink or stares out into space after pouring herself a bit of gin. Very little happens, particularly in the second act, and “Ecstasy” would be hell in the hands of a cast less than completely invested. But with these actors, who turn a long, drunken vignette of four friends singing songs together into a tense and then tender drama, the play is heaven-sent.

“Ecstasy” takes place in 1979, pointedly on the eve of Margaret Thatcher’s ascension to prime minister (though she is not mentioned). A youngish British couple occupy a small bed, naked, postcoital and aimless. They are Jean (Rachel Singer), whose struggle with the gin bottle is one of the evening’s most gripping dramas, and Roy (Nick Offerman), a married man she’s picked up out of loneliness. Roy is a house painter, a modern Neanderthal, a man so stumped by the concept of conversation that he can only repeat, “How ya been alright?,” over and over again when he’s trying to seduce a woman.

At first, you may feel like Margaret Mead watching the mating rituals of a tribe without language skills. But as the evening unfurls, the characters become achingly articulated. By virtue in part of Singer’s uncommonly graceful performance, Jean in particular takes on a tremendous stature. Singer opens the door on this private woman’s thoughts, and her uphill struggle for a dignified life becomes a matter of heart-stopping importance.

Looking like a cross between a Dorothea Lange Depression-era photo and a luminous Eve, Singer’s Jean is the only character who touches a tragic dimension. Her working-class pals remain fairly firmly entrenched in the comic. Jean’s best friend Dawn (Debbie Bisno) is a busybody with three screwed-up (offstage) kids and a shoplifting habit. Dawn’s relentless chirpiness makes her sound like a foul-mouth Minnie Mouse. She and her husband, Mick (Scott Denny), an Irishman who likes to play the clown, seesaw between bickering and affection in a perfect verisimilitude of married stasis.

At times you may feel you are experiencing Leigh’s characters through the prism of your own brilliant perceptions, unfiltered through a playwright’s eye. Leigh manages this trick by combining astonishing observational skills with a virtual lack of judgment. These characters are firmly circumscribed by their social positions, and they display casual bigotry toward blacks, Jews and especially Pakistanis, with whom they are in competition for jobs. They drink hard, and the most intellectual among them reads Harold Robbins. Leigh conveys the sense that, in this place at this time, these people could not be anything other than what they are. And what they are is surprising, oddly heroic in spite of all of their limitations, and completely believable.

Silver’s soft-spoken Jean stands apart from the rest. The variations that play across her face when she pours herself a drink or while she waits for a potential suitor (the arresting Lance Baker) to ask her to dance are ineffably touching. If she finally finds a moment of peace, friendship and confession, that is as much of a denouement as Leigh offers. “Ecstasy” is a play that asks actors what they are made of. The Roadworks company responds in kind, and their answer is stunning.

BE THERE

“Ecstasy,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A., Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m., except Jan. 25, Feb. 8, 2 p.m. only. Ends March 1. $18.50-$22.50. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.