‘Floating Rhoda’ Offers an Unsteady Voyage

The quest for emotional anchors in the free-fall of modern relationships propels an edgy quintet of desperate characters in Eve Ensler’s promising but frustrating “Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man” at the Stella Adler Theatre.

Director Robyn Cronulla Lee scored a coup of sorts in securing the play’s first West Coast production rights, on the condition that it would be cast with Lee’s acting students. While Lee’s staging invests the work with raucous physical intensity that both suits and enhances the text, the piece could be better served with more professional casting and resources. The production feels like an acting class showcase.

In the title role of a recovering abuse victim, Drea Hoffman exudes wounded rage but little positive conviction in her character’s romantic transition from her bestial boyfriend Coyote (Chris Garnant) to the more stable, considerate Barn (David Matalon), a painter who supplies Rhoda’s emotional glue. Meanwhile, her girlfriend (Jill Ferrell) and a young doctor (Shanna Igoe) begin a lesbian relationship as a means of self-exploration, through the externalized reflections of their own bodies in each other.

Intriguing role reversals abound--especially with Coyote’s amusing mutation into a vegetarian New Age male. Amid these earnest, committed performances, however, only Igoe takes the extra step of injecting enough ironic self-awareness to make her character truly believable.

As might be expected from the creator of “The Vagina Monologues,” solo narrative seems to be Ensler’s characters’ preferred mode of expression--even in dialogue. The resulting mixed bag ricochets between passages of haunting eloquence and arch non sequiturs masquerading as profound epiphanies; rarely do these people seem to be having a real conversation.

A risky presentational technique that pays off involves the substitution of Rhoda and Barn stand-ins (Nicoletta Marmaras and Jim Raposa), as the leads step outside the ceaseless barrage of intensity mixed with pretension. Ultimately, the viewer is motivated to do likewise.

* “Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man,” Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays, 10 p.m., Saturdays, Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 25. $10. (323) 465-4446. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.