An Uncommon ‘Vision’

Outside her 14th-story apartment window, a woman hangs in midair, suspended by nothing. A beam from above illuminates her plea: “Please let me remember this. I want to remember.”

Dream? Reality? Sleepwalker? UFO abductee? The truths are out there, but they’re plural, not singular, and vapory.

For Dolores, the protagonist of Neena Beber’s wryly observant comedy “A Common Vision,” now at the Ivy Substation in Culver City, a possible brush with the paranormal sets into motion a series of vexing incidents.

Already, Dolores is struggling with a relationship breakup and crummy self-esteem. The unidentified hovering whatzit only heightens her sense of dislocation. Her shrink puts Dolores under hypnosis; soon enough, the abductee memories emerge.

Familiar turf, at least for television and the movies. Yet even in a problematic staging, “A Common Vision” dodges cliche after cliche, thanks to Beber’s distinctive deadpan comic touch.

At the 1997 Humana new play festival, Beber’s 10-minute play “Misreadings” outstripped everything else, short or long, that year in Louisville. Earlier full-length Beber plays, notably “The Brief but Exemplary Life of the Living Goddess (as told by herself)” and “Tomorrowland,” revealed a writer of odd, uncommon grace and bone-dry wit, recalling short-story ace Lorrie Moore as well as the MTV series “Daria.” (Beber has written five “Daria” episodes, so that explains that.)

Following its world premiere earlier this year at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre, “A Common Vision” now makes its Los Angeles premiere in a production co-presented by Annabelle Gurwitch and the Hidden Theatre Company. It’s not bad, but it’s not fully in sync with the text’s sensibility.

Only two performers in director Daniel Bernstein’s staging fully capture the weirdly funny tone: Suzanne Krull as Mona, Dolores’ neighbor, tabloid fan and sounding board, and Aaron Buckwalter as the more rigid of the two Secret Service men who witness . . . something. As Dolores, Shannon Holt keeps all the insecure, jittery externals on full boil. She’s a good actress on the wrong track. There’s nothing deadpan about the characterization, and it’s at odds with the material.

Beber is a writer worth tracking, that much is clear. Even in a half-good production, “A Common Vision” just may rattle around your brain for a while. In between the banter, Beber’s off-center characters contend with old, thorny memories, reminders of where they’ve been.

“The past is past,” says one character. “It should be kept in a box, like an old photograph. That’s why people save things in a box, isn’t it? So they can forget them. Know they’re there, then forget.”

BE THERE

“A Common Vision,” Hidden Theatre Company at the Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 3. $12. (323) 655-TKTS. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.