Psychological Drama Goes Flat in ‘Bicycleman’

Amid the pharmaceutical quick fixes that shape post-Prozac attitudes toward emotional disturbance, the kind of old-fashioned psychoanalytic sleuthing resurrected by Edward J. Moore’s “Bicycleman” has a quaintly retro appeal. However, in the play’s debut at Theatre West, an overdose of melodrama combined with some rough spots in construction and staging also remind us why Freudian-style “whatdunits” have fallen on hard times.

Moore plays his protagonist, Jack, a renowned woodcarver who finds himself on emotional thin ice when his New York girlfriend, Kate (Suzzy London), unexpectedly shows up at his Minnesota apartment to announce she’s pregnant--and moving in.

Soft-spoken but given to inexplicable outbursts of anger, Jack is barely functional even without the added responsibilities of relationship and fatherhood. His business is failing because he can’t compromise his impractical devotion to craftsmanship and reverence for an unspoiled natural order--values he acquired from his late grandfather, the crook-necked sage whose preferred means of transportation supplies the play’s title.

On her arrival, Kate finds herself immersed in the swamp of Jack’s moody secrets, which she tries to unravel with the curiously reluctant help of Jack’s elderly apprentice (Dick Bocelli) and his feisty wife (Chi Chi Navarro).

Following the genre’s classic confrontational formula, an underlying trauma is climactically bared, but missing in action are the sympathetic hooks that make us care about the outcome. Moore’s detailed portrait of Jack’s breakdown furnishes plenty of specifics--about the art and business of woodworking, the ravages of strip mining, and the characters’ well-mapped biographies--without investing those specifics with the broader relevance needed to involve an audience. Some awkward dialogue timing in Daniel Keogh’s staging is even more distancing. “Bicycleman” needs more work to pump up the accessibility and soft-pedal the histrionics.

* “Bicycleman,” Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Hollywood. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Feb. 11. $15. (323) 851-7977. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.