‘Night Sky’ Glows as Tribute to Director Battling Aphasia

Susan Yankowitz’s “Night Sky” is an engrossingly painful examination of an astronomer’s fall into a black hole of aphasia.

Lawrence Miller’s set at the Odyssey Theatre separates three main spheres of existence in the astronomer’s life--academic, personal and medical--by placing them on platforms that lift them above a blackened floor. Anna (Kimberly King) commands attention as a lecturer whose tools are words. At home, she manages the lives of her companion (Robert Lee Jacobs) and her teenage daughter (Kimberly Rose Wolter).

Things seem to whirl out of orbit after an accident damages her brain. Her lover becomes her interpreter, and her daughter her teacher. Her colleague Bill--played with authoritative aplomb by James Gale--takes over her lectures. Through Bill, Yankowitz aligns poetic metaphors between the unknown wonders of space and the mind.

There are minor flaws in the script. Anna’s problems with her lover and her daughter are too easily resolved.

But director Hope Alexander sensitively draws on the script’s strengths. Passages in which King helplessly and angrily searches for ways to convey her meaning stretch to the edge of discomfort. King’s Anna is radiant as she struggles to understand a world redefined. Jacobs’ performance is charming, though not as deeply nuanced.

Yankowitz wrote this play for the ‘60s cutting-edge director Joseph Chaikin, who suffered a massive stroke during surgery and has been struggling with aphasia ever since. This production is an illuminating tribute.

BE THERE

“Night Sky,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; March 23 and 26 only, 2 p.m. Ends April 9. $18.50 to $22.50. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours.