Goofy Futuristic Staging the Name of ‘Signature’s’ Game

Sometimes, going to the theater takes you to two places simultaneously, one more interesting than the other.

Such is the case with Beth Henley’s “Signature,” now at the Actors’ Gang Theater. A collaboration of Bloy Street Productions and Naked Angels Theatre Company, it’s an elegant amalgam of retro-futuristic design flourishes, classy video projection and lively performances. Director Veronica Brady’s staging gives Henley’s futuristic goof a good, strong go. But the play itself can’t get out of neutral.

Henley locates the action in Hollywood in the year 2052, which resembles Hollywood in 1995, the year Henley’s play was first performed. Citizens lust for fame. Recreational drugs are big (though here, they’re taken in the ear). “Where Are They Now?” shows are all the rage. People are dying from an AIDS-like plague.

Some things have changed. The ocean has wiped out the land west of the Hollywood sign. Heavy on the chain link and barbed wire, Elvis Restaino’s scenic design captures this trashed-out quality with real flair. Individual freedoms have been eroded (just like the National Rifle Assn. said they would!).

Tough times, in other words, for self-proclaimed “art philosopher” Boswell T-Thorpe (Ed Trotta). He’s a survivor of fame’s cruel 15 minutes. He invented “the box theory,” that everything can, in fact, be boxed, but his star has since fallen. His gadfly agent L-Tip (Terrah Bennett Smith, capturing wonderfully the essence of shallow scenemaker) hasn’t been very good for his career. Boswell, dying, yearns for one more “splash.”

L-Tip hasn’t been much good for Boswell’s brother, either. He is Maxwell (Gareth Williams), L-Tip’s pining ex-husband. In Henley’s vision of the future, citizens can apply for government-sanctioned euthanasia; Maxwell becomes the first to do so over a broken heart, which turns him into an unlikely celebrity with a publishing deal for his achy-breaky poems.

Boswell seeks advice from a half-mad graphologist (Susan Barnes, with fake braided underarm hair). Secretly lusting after him, she convinces Boswell he can alter his fate by altering his signature. Meantime a sewage cleanup artist (wittily played by Elaine Tse) becomes romantically involved with Boswell.

*

Best known for “Crimes of the Heart” (a fact she’s probably good and sick of hearing by now), Henley goes hog wild in “Signature,” creating a lexicon for the near future. Getting “noosed” means getting dumped. “Pogo-ing” means, well, something other than being on a pogo stick. Other meanings remain constant, among them the all-important “celebrity chase,” L.A.’s once and future synthetic drug of choice.

It’s promising, and some of it is quite clever. But “Signature” keeps dissolving in front of your eyes and ears, even in a production as lively as this one. The material wobbles between irony and sincerity. (The sixth character is a homeless mute played by Josh Johnson II.) By design, perhaps, amid all the soulless artifice the sole blast of high spirits comes in a dance routine performed by Johnson II and Tse. Rodney Munoz’s glorious cheeseball costumes are joyous affairs, too, making fine use of Dixie-cup-dotted headgear and the like.

But “Signature,” in a strong rendition such as this one, remains a two-track experience. The play is the occasion for the production, but the production--without trying--outclasses the play.

* “Signature,” Actors’ Gang Theater, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 29. $20 to $25. (323) 465-0566, Ext. 2 or https://www.signaturetheplay.com. Running time: 2 hours.

Ed Trotta: Boswell T-Thorpe

Gareth Williams: Maxwell T-Thorpe

Elaine Tse: William Smith

Terrah Bennett Smith: L-Tip

Josh Johnson II: C-Boy

Susan Barnes: Reader

Tim Ransom, Vanessa Kay, Paul Eckstein, Zoe Warner: Official, Euth Woman, Euth Guy, Boswell’s daughter (on video)

Written by Beth Henley. Directed by Veronica Brady. Scenic design by Elvis Restaino. Costumes by Rodney Munoz. Music by Mark Boccaccio. Video production by Eamon Harrington and Planet Grande Pictures. Projections by Nick Edgington and Design Magic. Stage manager Jennifer Scheffer.