Stage Light

It may seem as impossible as reversing the aging process, but James McClure somehow manages in his play, “Pvt. Wars,” at the Bitter Truth Theatre’s tiny annex space, the Sweet Lies Theatre, to turn the pain of psychically damaged Vietnam veterans into a piffle.

Given its context, the only shocking thing about “Pvt. Wars” is how minor it is.

And yet, this is a major-league play for McClure, on the financial side. We’re guessing he manages nicely off the constant royalties for what has to be one of the decade’s most frequently revived dramas.

It’s easy to spot the reasons for the piece’s popularity with theater companies: an affordable two-acter with only three roles, a single set (the recreation room of a veterans’ hospital), droll humor that cuts against any potential sentimentality and loads of chances for the three actors to show off.

And theater-savvy audience members will also spot other connections: the goofy-sad theatrics and rebellious themes of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Creeps,” plus the combination of absurd stasis and brief scenes that run through John Steppling’s plays.

Unlike those precedents, though, there’s no residue from “Pvt. Wars.” It’s like somebody’s idea of turning Vietnam vet woes into a network sitcom (OK, maybe HBO). The pain goes down easy, the audience isn’t taxed and the actors have fun. Such a deal.

McClure’s trio fills a paint-by-numbers canvas of male fear and weakness. The most clearly disturbed is Silvio (Martin Berg), who is impotent because of shrapnel. Gately (Darren Gray Ward) could be diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive--forever trying to repair an old radio--though how Vietnam made him that way is never clear. Uptight rich boy Natwick (Oliver Henzler) is suicidal, and forever taunted by Silvio.

Scene after super-brief scene, McClure changes the combinations, so Gately is with Silvio, then Silvio with Natwick, and so on.

But like Gately’s own compulsiveness, the scenes just go around and around and never anywhere until late in the play, when McClure must have felt the need to make something happen. By then, it all feels arbitrary and even mawkishly literary (Gately observes the sunrise; his radio is finally repaired).

But unlike the best work of the Theatre of the Absurd in Beckett or Ionesco (whom McClure also apes), there’s no sense of comic terror or building pressure here, and director Adam Wilhite’s cast adds no weight of its own.

Ward’s Gately feels like the only one who actually saw combat, while Berg is stiffly mannered and Henzler can’t turn Natwick’s rigidity into something funny or moving.

*

“Pvt. Wars,” Sweet Lies Theatre at the Bitter Truth Theatre, 11050 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 28. $12. (818) 755-7900. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.