Return of an Outlaw

There’s a broadly defined school of pop culture both embracing and mocking the romance of the Wild West. You find it in everything from the plays of Sam Shepard to the “hip,” “youthful” gunslinger projects developed by the nervous set in Hollywood.

The revisionism peaked in the Nixon era. America’s grinding war in Vietnam led to a reexamination of America’s 19th century wars at home, in the name of settlement. After a million westerns came and went reinforcing the old myths, a new-style western romanticism came of age. These were the cool westerns, often jokey and full of zingers (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”), sometimes mournful and elliptical (“McCabe and Mrs. Miller”).

The eternally popular punk-killer Billy the Kid got his revisionist due too, chiefly by way of “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” which had no zingers and a lot less grisly flash than earlier Sam Peckinpah movies. One box-office flop couldn’t kill off the Kid, however.

Movies didn’t have a lock on this new, gritty romanticism. In 1970, Michael Ondaatje’s book “The Collected Works of Billy the Kid” spoke softly but vividly, by way of loosely connected poems, prose pieces and multiple narrators. Ondaatje, a Toronto resident born in the former Ceylon, is today best known for “The English Patient.” His Billy the Kid novel, later adapted for the stage, reveals a grim fascination with the violence William H. Bonney lived, breathed and perpetrated.

Now the stage version has returned. Des McAnuff, artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse, has a long history with Ondaatje’s adaptation: In 1974, McAnuff composed music for a Toronto production, the first of several on which McAnuff worked.

His latest opened Sunday in La Jolla, reuniting co-director McAnuff with Ondaatje, again featuring music--a lot of it--by McAnuff.

The result is extremely faithful to the book, yet the tone is softer and more sentimental. The production, co-directed by Kate Whoriskey, is full of artful, evocative touches, sights, sounds; every moment would make a fine still photograph. It’s very watchable. And it’s fundamentally hollow.

The adaptation begins with the ominous flapping of birds’ wings, thunder and lightning. It is a night for killing. In the adaptation’s opening minutes, we witness Pat Garrett (Gary Cole) blast Billy the Kid (Shawn Hatosy) with a shotgun, sending the actor tumbling through midair. It’s a very cool effect, repeated near the end of the show.

In a long, zigzagging flashback, various characters interact with and comment upon the Kid. Sallie Chisum (Susan Berman), in love and hurtin’, seethes as Billy canoodles with saloon tootsy Angela (Nicole DeHuff). The ranch owned by John Chisum (Mike Genovese, very good) becomes a sometime hangout for Billy, and for Garrett, his acquaintance and eventual avenging angel.

Ondaatje’s book was blood-soaked; the play too is filled with stories of rats eating rats, rabid dogs devouring their owner, and--chiefly--man against man, a six-shooter being jammed into some poor sucker’s mouth.

The material is fragrant, to be sure, but the language worked better on the page. Billy describes Angela at one point, “. . . her arms out straight over the edge of the bed like a peninsula rich with veins.” We’re in a realm of poeticized myth-making, but still: The Kid would’ve spit in this guy’s eye. It sounds forced. Even with an intriguing young actor playing him, Billy remains a springboard for various effects, not a rich, troubling figure.

McAnuff the co-director has indulged McAnuff the composer. A lot of the songs are pretty, but they tend to trade in a cozy folk realm. At one point, when Billy and his gang deliver six-part harmony around a campfire, you think you’re hearing Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and Two Other Guys.

“The Collected Works of Billy the Kid” wants to flesh out the myth, yet it wants the show biz too: the flying effects, the snazzy whoooosh of the stage campfires, the easy glide of the stage-floor units, the blood squibs.

Make no mistake, this is high-grade theatrical craftsmanship, beautifully designed by a top-flight collaborative team. It’s a question of what sort of engagement you’re getting. During Billy’s Act 2 riff, in which he relays a sunstroked hallucination, you find yourself tuning out the language and instead watching the left-to-right progress of the gliding spotlight above the stage, capturing Billy’s soliloquy.

Another “touch.” With so much poetry coming at us every second, it’s hard to connect with the soul of a killer.

*

* “The Collected Works of Billy the Kid,” La Jolla Playhouse, Mandell Weiss Forum, UC San Diego, La Jolla Village Drive at Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends July 15. $19-$42. (858) 550-1010. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

Shawn Hatosy: Billy the Kid

Presciliana Esparolini: Celsa Guitterez

Sean Bridgers: Tom O’Folliard

Brian Vander Ark: Charlie Bowdre

Susan Berman: Sallie Chisum

Gary Cole: Pat Garrett

Nicole DeHuff: Angela Dickinson

Mike Genovese: John Chisum

Steve Gouveia: Maxwell, Musician

William Mesnik: Interviewer, Musician

Brett Beardslee: Wilson, J.W. Bell, Musician

Written by Michael Ondaatje. Directed by Kate Whoriskeyand Des McAnuff. Music by Des McAnuff. Scenic design by Mark Wendland. Costumes by Catherine Zuber. Lighting by Robert Perry. Sound, music direction and vocal arrangements by Michael Roth. Fight director Steve Rankin. Stage manager Diana Moser.