‘Weights,’ a Playwright’s Solo Show of Humanity, Clarity

In an era of hucksters, hype and 15-minute celebrities, Lynn Manning is that rarest of valuable commodities. Manning is an artist. Not in the cheapened modern sense of the word, that generic meaning that is misapplied to every Hollywood deal maker with a high concept and a cell phone. Manning is the real thing, a writer of clarity, finesse and overriding humanity.

Manning also happens to be blind. That particular condition has nothing to do with his talent or his capacities--and everything to do with his art, or more specifically, the evolution of his creative identity.

“Weights,” Manning’s intensely personal solo show, now being presented by the Taper, Too at the Actors’ Gang, hinges upon Manning’s senseless blinding in 1978 and his subsequent efforts to rebuild his life. The piece was developed in conjunction with the Mark Taper Forum’s Other Voices Project, which is devoted specifically to helping disabled theater artists hone their work.

“Weights” traces Manning’s life from his impoverished childhood in South-Central L.A. to the present. Based on 20 years of Manning’s writings, the play was refined over the course of three years in the Other Voices program.

Going into Other Voices, Manning was already a respected playwright and poet whose critically acclaimed dramas include “Private Battle” and “Central Ave. Chalk Circle,” updated adaptations of Buchner’s “Woyzeck” and Brecht’s “Caucasian Chalk Circle.”

Autobiographical solo shows present a clear and present danger. Often, the writer-performer subjects the audience to a diary-like recounting of his or her past, with all the minutiae intact. That kind of show might serve its creator as a personal expiation, but it can be deadly going for an audience.

No fear here. A cerebrally athletic wordsmith, Manning knows how to twist a phrase and lash out an insight with agility and strength. Far from a dreary recapitulation, his story vaults back and forth in time, selectively and effectively, splicing surrealism and realism, humorous banter and fiercely poetic outbursts into a sweeping autobiographical sampling.

Tall, muscular and formidably fit, Manning strides on stage and positions himself within the rectangular playing area of Akeime Mitterlehner’s simple set. Geoff Korf’s lighting keeps Manning effectively pinpointed. Sound designers Karl Fredrik Lundeberg and Al Jackson are both integral players throughout the evening. Jackson acts as deejay, spinning platters to underscore Manning’s narrative, while Lundeberg plays his original compositions on a variety of instruments. The music, both live and taped, heightens the action without swelling into melodramatic excess.

Sliding through a series of smooth karate moves (he is a former judo champion), Manning commences with a routine anecdote about bodysurfing on a busy beach. But as the sky darkens and the beach magically empties, we realize that we are descending into a nightmare, a place of menace and dread, where sudden violence is an ever-present possibility.

An aspiring painter, Manning was shot by a deranged drunk in 1978--but he had strange premonitions of his blindness long before that. One of the most striking aspects of the evening is Manning’s lack of bitterness over his blinding, which redirected and redefined him, both creatively and personally. Manning is also forgiving of his alcoholic mother, who routinely neglected and abandoned the nine children she had by various men. In fact, he dedicates his show to “Moms,” and his enduring affection for that flawed character, now deceased, is palpable.

Manning describes the nuts-and-bolts logistics of adjusting to his blindness with offbeat humor, earning genuine belly laughs from his audience as he recounts the problems of inappropriately helpful bystanders, the new experience of wooing a woman he can’t see, and the travails of urination.

As a personality, Manning is always prepossessing. However, as an actor, he seems occasionally hesitant, at least in this outing. Director Robert Egan, the producing director at the Taper, hasn’t quite smoothed out the rough edges in Manning’s performance. A few inappropriate pauses could be chalked up to opening-night gremlins that might disappear during the course of this too-short run.

“Weights” is a memory play, one man’s saga about the triumph of spirit over adversity. As entertainment, it is constantly diverting. As art, it is universal and cathartic. For Manning, it is a personal triumph, bravely revealing and poignant.

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* “Weights,” Taper, Too at the Actors’ Gang, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Saturday, 5:30 p.m.; Sunday, 5:30 p.m.; Monday, 8 p.m. Ends Monday. $20. (213) 628-2772. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.