Cosmic Love Blossoms in ‘Possible Worlds’

You can barely find the play amid the production. But for the West Coast premiere of John Mighton’s “Possible Worlds,” the final production of the Group at Strasberg, in West Hollywood, sharp designers have put their best feet forward in the service of director Scott Feldsher, co-founder of San Diego’s Sledgehammer Theatre.

The program describes Toronto-born mathematician Mighton’s 1990 play as “a cosmic mystery exploring love in a quantum universe.” A pair of police detectives (Edwin Craig and Ernesto Rowe, in fedoras too small for their heads) are working on a case involving the removal and theft of human brains. The latest to be found brainless is George (Ron Pisaturo).

Brainlessness never stopped anyone from falling in love, of course, and “Possible Worlds” explores the idea of alternate romantic realities. In pretzel-like flashbacks, George meets Joyce (Nina Sallinen) again and again, here as small-town sweethearts, there as a one-night stand.

“Each of us lives in an infinite number of possible worlds,” says George. Throw in the prospect of alien abduction, and Mighton’s play (filmed recently by theater visionary Robert Lepage) is off and wandering.

Set and media designer Michelle Riel, who has done wonderful work in San Diego and elsewhere, creates a lovely clean-lined, blood-red rectangle, bordered by a row of rocks on each side. The side and back walls flash video projections and (less effectively) whirling fractal-like images.

Another San Diego-sprung talent, composer Pea Hicks, contributes a densely layered sound scape of cornball dramatic music cues and whispered fragments of conversation. David Lee Cuthbert’s lighting at one point gives Sallinen’s blond hair a purple tinge, and against that red backdrop, purple on blond on crimson is a real eyeful.

Director Feldsher throws a heap of stuff at this material and then, when it’s not looking, another heap. By turns his approach to “Possible Worlds” is bold and numbing--the conceptual equivalent of a half nelson. All the sternly choreographed movement and whamp! lighting cues become a bit much, without enough rhythmic variety.

But when the 75 minutes are done, you have at least been somewhere and seen something.

*

“Possible Worlds,” the Group at Strasberg, Lee Strasberg Creative Center, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 5 p.m. Ends July 29. $17-$19. (323) 650-7777. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Ron Pisaturo: George

Nina Sallinen: Joyce

Edwin Craig: Berkley

Ernesto Rowe: Williams

Phil Johnson: Penfield

Written by John Mighton. Directed by Scott Feldsher. Set and media designer Michelle Riel. Lighting by David Lee Cuthbert. Sound by Pea Hicks. Costumes by Melanie Watnick. Stage manager Athena Gam.