A Time Paradox With Too Much Time for Devices

There’s a funny thing called the time paradox. Physicists know it well. Basically, the paradox suggests if you were able to go back in time, you would reach a point where you could actually affect the course of actions that led to who you are in present time.

Of course, if you did something to change the course enough, you couldn’t possibly be who you are. While some physicists, such as those investigating time travel, puzzle over the paradox, writers such as Robert Heinlein and Rod Serling have played with it, sometimes without fully understanding it. Lloyd J. Schwartz is one of those writers, falling into the time paradox trap with his new metaphysical comedy-drama, “Much a Dieux,” at the Whitmore-Lindley Theatre Center.

In the first scene, set on Dec. 7, 1941, this two-act play looks pretty light, as young newlyweds (Jason Galloway and Jessica Gaynes, who play it too contemporary) wake up the morning after their vows realizing that the bride is “still intact.” (It doesn’t read any funnier than it sounds on stage.) She admits she faked being drunk during the wedding to get out of having to make love, triggering a vow they both make: to always be honest with each other. This is the play’s mainspring, but it’s never developed by Schwartz with verve or energy. In a strained bit of action, Galloway’s groom is told by a nosy hotel maid that Pearl Harbor has been bombed, but he can’t tell his new wife for fear of ruining the sexual mood. Schwartz’s solution to this problem is, to be charitable, lame.

The second and third scenes in Act I at first seem disconnected from the first, but we quickly realize this is the bride and groom, older and now given names--Martin and Deborah Reynolds. In their middle years, Martin and Deborah (an effective Ron Kuhlman and Elizabeth Wells) confront the reality that he broke their vow and had an affair 10 years earlier. As elders, Martin (a strong Bryan Clark) can’t stand watching Deborah (Jo Deodato Clark) slowly die of cancer, while admitting to the attending nurse that their brain-damaged daughter was not the blessing he had once claimed her to be.

Even with the couple dying, none of this is especially moving in either Schwartz’ writing or Pamela Hall’s unimaginative staging. But it’s all a setup for Act II, which brings us to the time paradox. The uncredited set, formerly mundane interiors, is a bright, white room--heaven, obviously, or something close to it. Sure enough, Martin and Deborah enter and an overly perky yet officious character oddly called “Proctor” (Lissa Layng, overdoing it in one of several roles) informs them that before they can enter heaven, they must “declare” any secrets they’ve kept from each other.

It’s an arch, a device that mechanically continues the first scene’s premise, but it’s not nearly half as bad as something else.

Schwartz has the younger Martin and Deborah enter this purgatory room, figuring it will be effective, for instance, to have younger Deborah learn that Martin later cheated on her. It isn’t, and besides, this stage device is itself a cheat. It plays on an audience who may be caught up in the moment, but, on reflection, it makes no logical or even metaphorical sense. It also suggests the couple’s various life stages are frozen in time and that past and present selves can affect each other.

The time paradox says that’s not possible. What does live on in each of us as we grow older is our memories of our younger selves--a truth that has escaped a play too in love with devices. One last problem: Although it’s never easy to cast a character for three different ages, the various Martins and Deborahs on this stage look almost nothing like each other. The time paradox is tough enough, but the casting paradox is a real bear.

BE THERE

“Much a Dieux,” Whitmore-Lindley Theatre Center, 11006 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends March 19. $15. (818) 761-0704.