‘Private Jokes’ Finds Humor in Academia

Anyone who has ever suffered through a dry academic symposium, with various “experts” pontificating in prolix philosophical terms that would baffle Spinoza, will find much to hoot about in Oren Safdie’s “Private Jokes, Public Places” at the Malibu Stage Co.

Safdie, a former architecture student and the son of prominent architect Moshe Safdie, uses a simple premise--an architecture student presenting her thesis project before an academic jury--as a jumping-off point for a facile examination of academia, intellectual pretension and the failure of postmodernist culture.

Margaret (M.J. Kang), a deceptively diffident young Korean student, has reinvented the wheel in her plans for a public swimming facility. Margaret intends her building as a full-scale sensory experience, a womb-like haven. Ironically, Margaret’s scale model inspires very opposite emotions among her judges. Pompous Erhardt (Rod McLachlan) makes a gentlemanly attempt to reconcile Margaret’s ideas with his own deconstructionist notions. But for Colin (Geoffrey Wade), a hidebound Brit, Margaret’s utopianism is a direct challenge to his hard-core utilitarianism and, ultimately, his cultural snobbishness. William (Fritz Michel), the panel moderator, is just that--an academic spinmeister who is so relentlessly moderate, he could make you crazy.

As played by Michel, William comes across as more innocuous than craven--one of the few missteps in Craig Carlisle’s crisp staging. Otherwise, Carlisle strikes a delicate balance between Safdie’s puckishness and the very serious issues his play presents. There are no villains here, and no heroes. Each character, with the exception of the one-dimensional William, is a study in dichotomy. Erhardt comes across as a crashing bore--until he startles us with his savagely incisive insights. And far from being the exponent of humanism we initially presume her to be, Margaret just may be the most egocentric and self-aggrandizing of the lot.

In fact, it is Margaret’s realization of her own underlying hypocrisy that spurs her toward the grand and shocking gesture that closes the play.

As for Safdie, comparisons with Yasmina Reza’s “Art” will be inevitable. But Safdie, a writer-in-residence at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in New York, rivals Reza in wit and often outstrips her in intellectual heft.

*

“Private Jokes, Public Places,” Malibu Stage Co., 29243 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 5 p.m. Ends Oct. 28. $20. (310) 589-1998. Running time, 1 hour, 30 minutes.