Out of the Woodwork

Playwright Shem Bitterman could have a second career as an entomologist. In “The Job” at the Hudson Guild, Bitterman chronicles the insectile pursuits of his lowlife characters with the exactitude of a scientific field researcher.

Lifelong loser Frank (Barry Cullison), a petty con artist and recovering drunk, is uneducated, unprepossessing and unemployable, appealing only to his longtime girlfriend Mags (Deborah Offner), a drunken semi-prostitute who yearns, against all the odds, for a normal life. However, job counselor John (Robert Cicchini), whose existential philosophizing doesn’t conceal his intrinsic creepiness, gloms on to Frank as the perfect candidate for an upcoming assignment. Despite John’s evasions, Frank soon realizes that his “hands-on” gig isn’t exactly in the white-collar sector.

Bitterman, who also directs, constructs his black comedy in a series of tense, elliptical scenes, capturing his characters in their furtive activities like cockroaches scrabbling on the drainboard when the light is flicked on.

Reminiscent of vintage John Steppling, but with more laughs, Bitterman’s purposefully cryptic style bristles with offhanded aphorisms. Upon being awakened and offered booze, Jim (Jack Stehlin), Frank’s old cohort in crime, grouses that “I never drink after I’ve passed out.” The pathetically hopeful Mags, explaining why she’s never held a respectable job before, comments that things would be different, “if they came up with a job that didn’t involve schedules.” And the frantic Martin (Daniel Nathan Spector), who has arranged his own murder as part of an insurance scam, explains: “I want to sell my house, but the time’s not right.” Among Bitterman’s desperate have-nots, death is preferable to material loss.

Richly humorous, in defiance of its grim subject matter, Bitterman’s staging is an exercise in stylistic economy. Also effectively spare, J. Gregor Veneklasen’s bleak set provides the perfect drainboard against which the play’s scurrying creatures contrive--and survive.

In keeping with the production’s austere tone, a dream cast delivers stringently realistic performances. Offner is particularly touching as Mags, the boozy floozy whose battered soul retains an innate sweetness. Dripping with lechery and false sanctimony, Stehlin roars through his brilliantly bombastic turn as an itinerant street preacher whom Frank taps as a murderous pinch-hitter. However, it is Cullison’s quieter portrayal that proves most riveting. Cowering and inarticulate, a punch-drunk brawler on the margins of society, Frank emerges as the moral fulcrum of the play. His flirtation with evil--and his curious path to redemption--prove that all nature’s creatures, however repugnant or insignificant, can assume noble proportions under the artist’s microscope.

BE THERE

“The Job,” Hudson Guild, 6543 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 19. $15. (323) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.