This ‘Baby’ Still Stuck in Infancy

If you’re doing a doctoral thesis on Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, you might want to see “And Baby Makes Seven,” presented by the Relentless Theatre Company at the Lillian Theatre’s Elephant Off Main Space. Otherwise, steer clear. The author of “How I Learned to Drive” was merely spinning her wheels in this negligible early effort, and the typically talented director Olivia Honegger takes her cast on a joyless ride leading nowhere.

The play opens with three boys chattering together in the darkness of their bedroom. As we soon learn, the boys are purely imaginary entities, the wards--and emotional conduits--of a lesbian couple and their gay male roommate, who “voice” the children and interact with them as if they were living beings.

Peter (Adam Paul), the male in this offbeat triangle, is the longtime best friend of Anna (Rachel Malkenhorst). At the request and behest of Anna and her lover, Ruth (Wendy Johnson), Peter has impregnated Anna, and the three are excitedly awaiting the birth of their child, which they intend to raise as a threesome. However, Peter is concerned about being party to the continual and increasingly vivid fantasies involving Henri, Cecil and Orphan McDermott, the trio’s “imaginary” children and hitherto the focus of their lives. Now that the real thing is gestating in Anna’s womb, the pretend kiddies must go.

Wally Weiss’ vividly colored set is a fitting backdrop for the heightened proceedings, but Vogel’s relentlessly artificial characters lack the underlying background and pathology that would shed some light on their sheer weirdness. Allusions in the program and press materials suggest that Vogel--or at least Honegger--intended the play as some sort of pointed metaphor about the plight of gays in a homophobic society. However, Vogel’s true intentions--or indeed, any legitimate reason justifying this far-fetched and pointless comedy-drama--remain vague.

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* “And Baby Makes Seven,” Elephant Off Main at the Lillian Theatre, 1076 Lillian Way, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. This Saturday, 3 p.m. Ends June 24. $15. (323) 281-0344. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.