Play Misses Mark as Gay Wake-Up Call

Writer-actor Saleem sets himself a difficult goal in his “Whispers of the Soul” at the Bitter Truth Playhouse in North Hollywood. He attempts to send “a wake-up call to those who would hate to admit that gay life is not necessarily all that gay.” He calls it “an open invitation to those who are not afraid. . . . “

Of course, he discounts all the plays that have already done this, from “Boys in the Band” on, including the ones written since the emergence of AIDS.

And he tries to do it on such a small canvas. “Whispers” is 75 minutes long, which means that its 13 scenes average five minutes each. Subtracting those scenes that do nothing to advance the story, such as one that contains only a belly dance, Saleem’s vision becomes even narrower.

The play is obviously autobiographical. It begins with Adam (Saleem) wandering on stage to view a slide show of his childhood and youth. The slide show ends, Saleem wanders off stage. The scene is called “The Journey to America.”

Because Saleem is an actor, there is an audition scene during which Adam insists on doing a monologue, and a rather erotic one at that, about being himself and being in America. The repulsed casting director wisely gets rid of him quickly. The scenes that follow are less dramatically viable: “Gay in America,” “A Search for Love,” “Why I Go to the Bathhouse” and “The Embrace.”

The evening is mostly a monologue spoken by Saleem as Adam. He talks about his attempts to find a lover, the failures of those affairs and his attempt to compensate by promiscuous physical encounters. But he has high hopes, he says, looking around the audience; he may “even have luck tonight.”

The piece is directed by Ty Donaldson, who attempts to give it some theatricality. He keeps the action going with movement, including having Saleem, like a stripper, dart behind a back-lit screen in the bathhouse scene and drop his towel--a split second before disappearing into his own shadow.

The various other characters, the casting director, several young men in bar and bathhouse, etc., are played with unwarranted sincerity by Scott Lewis (understudy subbing for Eric Keith).

It seems odd that Arab-born Saleem has created this trivial piece after having written “Salam Shalom,” also autobiographical, about his affair with a young Israeli man while living in Palestine. That work at least had the advantage of having a conflict, with a dramatic fulcrum an audience could hold on to.

BE THERE

“Whispers of the Soul,” Bitter Truth Playhouse, 11050 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 and 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 7. $15. (818) 755-7900. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.