‘Sins & Ages’: Retrieving a Master’s Words

Theatre West is launching its most ambitious season in decades with “Sins & Ages,” an intriguing if erratic bill of four Thornton Wilder one-acts that have never been produced on the West Coast.

The director is F.J. O’Neil, who retrieved the plays from the Wilder archives and edited them for the 1997 anthology “The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder” (Volume 1). The first two plays are from the cycle “The Seven Deadly Sins,” written in the late ‘50s, and the last two from a similar but slightly later cycle, “The Seven Ages of Man”--hence the umbrella title “Sins & Ages.”

The plays were written for an arena-style stage. Theatre West has a proscenium configuration. But if it’s not the kind of theater Wilder had in mind, at least it’s small enough to engender the same kind of intimacy that arena stages usually offer.

Wilder didn’t quite finish these plays, and it was O’Neil who created the final image of each play, based on what he felt were Wilder’s intentions.

In each of the first two plays, a strong older woman knows more about a pair of younger people than they want her to know--which creates a welcome edge.

A general’s arthritic widow (Jeanne Bates, formidably restrained and deadpan) is the target of a pair of mother-daughter con artists (Ursula Martin and Rebecca Lane) in “A Ringing of Doorbells.” The old woman is on to their scheme but pauses to admire their pluck and their familial bond, which is missing from her own life.

Because the play’s final speech was missing, O’Neil chose to repeat one of the play’s earlier lines in that spot, but it feels like an unnecessary underlining of the play’s point, and the timing on opening night was spoiled by a premature sound cue.

However, “A Ringing of Doorbells” fits the one-act form better than the next play, “In Shakespeare and the Bible.” The turn-of-the-last-century characters in this play are more complex: an ex-madam (Sara Shearer), her marriageable niece (Elizabeth DuVall) who is ignorant of her aunt’s previous profession, and the young woman’s fiance (Jay Sefton)--a former client and future attorney of the older woman. Except for an over-indicated performance in the minor role of a maid, the production is strong, but the play is too short to answer enough of its own questions; the situation is Shavian, but Shaw’s play would have been five times longer.

“Youth” follows intermission with a pointed parable in 18th century dress, in which the famous Gulliver (Richard Tatum) is shipwrecked in a land where everyone is sent off to die at age 30. The relevance of this to the age-prejudiced atmosphere in contemporary Hollywood is hard to miss. O’Neil’s editing of the final scene is very sure-footed, strengthening the play considerably.

“The Rivers Under the Earth” returns Wilder to the ‘50s, as a middle-aged couple and their teenage son and daughter speculate on the sources of their family’s quirks while relaxing under the stars at a lakeside picnic. As in the second play, the characters appear to have strayed in from a longer work, but the situation here isn’t as compelling, and the talk less consequential. The performances are likable, but the characters’ sunny dispositions and the father’s pipe bring to mind too many reminders of ‘50s sitcoms.

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* “Sins & Ages: Four Wilder One-Acts,” Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 and 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 3. $12. (888) 551-WEST. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.