A Mindful, Mannered Mystery

It’s part of an actor’s job, and pleasure, to keep us guessing--to make sure we can’t always be sure when it comes to a character’s motives, relative trustworthiness or enigmatic reasoning.

Donald Sutherland has been playing enigma variations his entire career, across a wide range of sympathetic and despicable assignments. Even something as utilitarian as Sutherland’s silky, authoritative voice-overs for Volvo bring to mind that ready, possibly dangerous grin, the hairpin-curve eyebrows, the gaze that, depending on the role and the moment within the role, can spell “you can trust me” as often as “you really shouldn’t have.”

Now, 18 years after he played Broadway in Edward Albee’s ill-fated adaptation of “Lolita,” Sutherland has returned to the stage. The occasion: the American premiere of French playwright Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s “Enigma Variations,” a deft, if schematic, disquisition on the mysteries of love that opened Wednesday at the Mark Taper Forum.

Sutherland hasn’t yet found all the ins and outs of this slippery role. He and Jamey Sheridan work hard and honorably--perhaps too much so. Yet considering the downtime between stage engagements, Sutherland is acquitting himself well. Now he and Sheridan, good actors in very different ways, need to locate a lightness of touch, as well as more vocal and dramatic variations on Schmitt’s theme.

Inspired and scored by Elgar’s gorgeous “Enigma Variations,” the play is a smart middlebrow diversion, a bit of a mystery and a bit of something else. In its own genre Schmitt’s play is akin to another Parisian export, Yasmina Reza’s “Art” (seen recently at the Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood), which despite its grand title was a diverting middlebrow comedy, nothing more or less.

Novelist Abel Znorko (Sutherland), a reclusive Nobel laureate, lives on an island in the Norwegian Sea. “Enigma Variations” begins as Znorko takes a couple of playful shots with a telescopic rifle--murderous, or merely warning?--at his visitor, newspaper journalist Erik Larsen (Jamey Sheridan).

Larsen has traveled 300 kilometers to interview Znorko about his latest, most universally acclaimed book, “The Unconfessed Love.” Who is “H.M.,” to whom the epistolary novel is dedicated? How much, and in what particulars, does the novel reflect a real-life love affair between Znorko and the book’s inspiration?

The imperious Znorko will have none of the dogged, self-righteous Larsen’s inquiry. The novelist is a Milan Kundera-styled hedonist, cool and intelligent and dodgy. “You pull back as soon as I ask a personal question,” Larsen says. The reply: “Because I prefer intelligent questions.”

And later: “You get a kick out of being a bastard, don’t you?” “It saves time.”

No major twists need be disclosed here. Suffice to say the two men’s lives are revealed to have a link only one of them realizes at the outset. As day turns to night on scenic designer Ming Cho Lee’s sleek, elegantly sterile setting, looking out on the sea (beautifully shaded by lighting designer Robert Wierzel), the play becomes a series of revelations and power plays.

Schmitt’s primary surprise is, in fact, not much of one: I’m not usually the first to dope out such things, but this one’s not hard to see coming. Yet it’s followed by another, more unpredictable one. And the play, however laden with leisurely philosophical passages, lands on an unexpectedly lovely grace note.

In Schmitt’s 1994 play “The Visitor” (optioned for Broadway next year), a man claiming to be God tells Sigmund Freud: “Some people have the knack of telling stories which everyone thinks are unique to them. They’re called writers.” That thesis is up-ended in “Enigma Variations,” first produced in 1997. Znorko’s novel touches a chord within his interviewer, and the reasons are, in effect, the play.

Though director Daniel Roussel’s staging feels physically right and confidently paced (no intermission, a little over an hour-and-a-half), the actors don’t yet seem sure how often to allow the humor to bubble up. The playing has a somewhat labored quality, exacerbated by the English-language translation by Sutherland’s son, Roeg Jacob. The translation doesn’t give flight to Schmitt’s philosophical fancies so much as drag them down, sonorously.

Amid Znorko’s windier sections you’re made aware of Sutherland’s chosen vocal attack. His familiar voice has served him beautifully throughout his career, and he has no evident trouble filling the Taper auditorium. Yet Sutherland, his hands jammed in his pockets, his feet planted, can get stuck in his middle range, as he tends to parcel out his character’s pronouncements as a series. of. neat. and. digestible. statements. Also, he doesn’t seem a changed man by play’s end; not that you want histrionic extremes and an ultra-clear “arc” (hate that word!), but Schmitt’s play is a stylish example of what Znorko calls fiction-writing--”a trick”--and it benefits from a sense of fun in the playing.

Playing the foil, Sheridan proves an artful, dogged opponent to Sutherland’s conversational strategist. What’s missing in the performances more than anything is buoyancy, a spirit of bully-boy gamesmanship. (A more easeful translation would do wonders.) “Enigma Variations” needn’t be treated like boulevard comedy, or a commercial thriller along the lines of “Sleuth,” which actually resembles “Enigma” in certain plot points. Schmitt’s an artful writer, comparable in spirit to Kundera; what he needs from actors isn’t respect, but relish--an enjoyment in this modest play’s interest in mysteries large and small.

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* “Enigma Variations,” Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Ends June 13. $29-$40; public rush and senior discounts, limited availability. (213) 628-2772 or https://www.Taper Ahmanson.com. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Donald Sutherland: Abel Znorko

Jamey Sheridan: Erik Larsen

Written by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, translated by Roeg Jacob. Directed by Daniel Roussel. Set design by Ming Cho Lee. Costume design by Candice Cain. Lighting design by Robert Wierzel. Sound design by Jon Gottlieb. Music adapted and arranged by Karl Fredrik Lundeberg. Production stage manager Mary K. Klinger. Stage manager Robin Veith.