Small Space Fosters Deeply Felt ‘Love!’

The Attic Theatre’s intimate production of Terrence McNally’s “Love! Valour! Compassion!” is a warm bath of sardonic and sentimental nostalgia.

Not that one wouldn’t still like to take a blue pencil to McNally’s lengthy opus. But the Attic’s tiny performance space proves a surprisingly effective setting for the emotional permutations that occur when eight men gather at a lakeside house for a bit of bickering, bantering, betrayal and pure male bonding.

The characters are all homosexual and a study in diversity--longtime friends who, despite their differences, present a united front against a hostile world--that is, until a hunky newcomer upsets their status quo.

Gregory (Derek Charles Livingston), the beneficent host, is a famous dancer approaching middle age and a career crisis. Gregory’s guests include his attorney, Perry (Jonathan Voyce), Perry’s accountant lover, Arthur (TL Kolman), and Gregory’s viciously acerbic British rehearsal pianist, John (Paul Duff, who also plays John’s sweet, HIV-infected twin brother, James). Also present is Buzz (heartbreakingly funny Field Blauvelt), an HIV-positive musical-theater savant with a quick wit and an uncertain future. When the newcomer, Ramon (Paul Brandon), has an affair with Gregory’s blind boyfriend, Bobby (Alfonso Paz), Gregory and the group yield to unaccustomed acrimony--until Gregory’s grand gesture of forgiveness reforges their fractured bond.

Despite a crack cast and big-budget production elements, the play’s 1996 production at the more spacious Geffen kept the audience at a psychological distance. Director John Vreeke’s staging at the Attic is understandably more rough-edged than the Geffen’s--the set consists largely of a few chairs, shoved to the side of the stage. But the proximity of the audience to these capable actors reinforces the characters’ familial connections--that deep and abiding kinship, existing outside the bonds of blood, that transforms McNally’s flawed drama into a poignant valedictory.

BE THERE

“Love! Valour! Compassion!” Attic Theatre, 6562 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Resumes Jan. 14. Ends Feb. 5. $20. (323) 469-3786, Ext. 4. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.