‘Columbus’ Sails Into Unilluminated Waters

When he wasn’t conducting Franco American diplomatic relations, the early-20th century French ambassador Paul Claudel wrote plays. One of them was “The Book of Christopher Columbus,” Claudel’s fanciful 1927 meditation on the history of the country to which he devoted so much of his professional energy.

Continent II’s committed revival at Stages Theatre Center is a serious attempt to continue Claudel’s efforts to bridge European and American cultures. Andre Nerman’s staging, however, rarely illuminates anything more than a historical curiosity in this particular text.

Nevertheless, Mark Piatelli is focused and charismatic in the title role, effectively communicating Claudel’s fascination with the spiritual underpinnings of secular events. This Columbus is a distracted loner and misfit, more secure in his private communion with God than in his disastrous public business ventures.

Columbus’ soulful nature strikes a resonant chord with Spain’s equally devout Queen Isabella (Maxens Nerman). But while the encounters between them are suggestive, their relationship remains disappointingly vague. Not that an actual tryst is called for, but disembodied religious fervor is tough to sustain onstage--a glimpse of their sublimated impulses would cement some grounding.

Throughout the tale, a stuffy, academic Reader (Henry Lide) recites commentary from a ponderous tome. In one of the more inventive sequences, he pierces the play’s structural wall and argues about the course of the narrative with the chorus (September Hopper, Armand Cachero, Michael Calas, Dan Boughton and Bashir Salahuddin). In moments of surrealistic clowning like this, the play scores its greatest successes.

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“The Book of Christopher Columbus,” Stages Theatre Center, 1540 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 18. $15-$20. (323) 931-3277. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.