Under the Surface in ‘Just for Nothing’

Indefinable truths remain hidden between the lines of “Just for Nothing” (“Pour un oui ou pour un non”), currently receiving its U.S. premiere at the Tamarind Theatre. Nathalie Sarraute’s taut 1982 duologue between estranged childhood friends typifies her nouveau roman aesthetic.

Rejecting conventional narrative and character, Sarraute’s tropism deploys specific choices of word and gesture to glean unspoken information, moving emotional prototypes into behavioral dynamics with the formal precision of a sonata. So goes “Just for Nothing,” a phenomenon in France, where it was filmed for television in 1990 by director Jacques Doillon, featuring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Andre Dussollier.

The metaphoric setting is a boxing ring, here rendered with clean verisimilitude by set designer Oliver Noinan, around which the affluent M1 (Stefan Cattan) and isolated M2 (Charles Fathy, who also directs) spar over their dissolved friendship. This colloquy, whose conundrum remains unsolved despite invocation of audience perspective in a wry coup de theatre at midpoint, is the existential raison d’etre.

Fathy’s acerbic intensity and Cattan’s early-period Jean Marais quality are keenly attuned, both scrupulously observing Sarraute’s exacting cadences.

Occasionally, hesitant articulation of Kaye Mortley’s English translation blurs the pace and nuances, ironic given the central theme. That liability aside, this is a fascinating cerebral exercise, with Sunday performances in French affording the opportunity for stylistic comparison studies.

David C. Nichols

“Just for Nothing” (“Pour un oui ou pour un non”), Tamarind Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 4 p.m.; in French, Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends June 2. $20. (323) 969-4848. Running time: 1 hour.

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‘Pilgrims’ Tells Tales of Small-Town Life

Sometimes, theater directors resort to plenty of bells, whistles and trumped-up folderol to disguise the essential flimsiness of their production.

That’s the case with Eberhard Kohler’s staging of “Pilgrims,” presented by Cal Rep at the Edison Theatre. Based on a short story collection by Elizabeth Gilbert, “Pilgrims” has been adapted for the stage by Shira Piven and Cal Rep Artistic Producing Director Howard Burman. The four playlets--one short, three attenuated--deal primarily with the rhythms and comical characters of small-town American life. As thumbnail character sketches, they hold marginal interest, but as far as cohesive drama is concerned, they are insubstantial, meandering and strikingly innocuous. Whether that’s the fault of Gilbert or her adaptors is unclear. What is clear is that Kohler leaves no gimmick unexploited in his attempt to enliven the general mish-mash.

In the opening piece, “The Many Things That Denny Brown Did Not Know (Age Fifteen),” a simple birthday party scene is reiterated four times, for some oblique stylistic purpose supposedly understood by Kohler, if no one else. Lots of neck-craning is required to keep track of the prancing performers, who are frequently required to freeze in long, unmotivated pauses that may have been intended for comic effect, but instead seem weirdly interruptive.

At one juncture, the audience is hurried out of the theater and ushered onto a nearby school bus for “The Finest Wife,” a tall tale about a former femme fatale, now an elderly school bus driver, who finds her route suddenly populated with the deceased admirers from her distant past. Whimsical and mystical, “Wife” is the most effective offering--until it devolves into a one-note joke. The last piece, “Tall Folks,” features a topless stripper doing a pole dance--a strikingly gratuitous sequence, even in context of this gratuitous staging. It’s a shame, because the actors are obviously seasoned professionals who dash away on their fool’s errand with energy and undiminished dignity.

F. Kathleen Foley

“Pilgrims,” Edison Theatre, 213 East Broadway, Long Beach. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 7 p.m.; Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Additional performances this Saturdayand May 18, 2 p.m. and Tuesday, 7 p.m. Ends May 18. $20. (562) 432-1818. Running time: 2 hours.

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Mythology, Banal Reality Mix in a Bueno ‘Wilfredo’

“I’m happy I understand so little--I wish I understood less,” declares an amiable cuckold in Wesley Walker’s “Wilfredo” from Padua Playwrights Productions.

He’s come to the right place.

Conventional expectations of theatrical meaning and content are a liability in writer/director Walker’s surreal collision of banal Southern California existence with the fluid boundaries of ancient mythology and the dream world.

Set in a highly stylized Tijuana saloon, Wesley’s fertile imagination weaves a hauntingly beautiful and at the same time ominous series of elliptical encounters between people who act out of unfiltered impulses rather than socially dictated norms.

The barkeep Wilfredo (John Horn), sets the tone with his obsessive insistence on not being addressed by anything other than his proper name. With perfect dry timing, he catalogs his unacceptable nicknames and the reasons why--as if reality can only be defined by what it is not.

What matters most to Wilfredo is his “bueno”--his life force, embodied in a pair of coins he’s stolen from the clueless cuckold Nester (Barry Del Sherman), the antithesis of his all-wise Homeric predecessor, Nestor.

While at bottom this is a simple boy-meets-bueno, boy-loses-bueno, boy-recovers-bueno story, forsaking the mundane world of cause and effect for the unconscious leaves an expansive canvas to play with.

It’s also a frustrating one to try to parse for literal sense. The best way to appreciate this work is to let it wash over you, and let its message emerge from the often poetic repetition of phrases and themes.

The effort is rewarded, thanks to exceptional performances that wring intriguing characters out of Walker’s opaque slates. As a pair of American visitors who oscillate between control and helplessness, George Gerdes and Jack Kehler dissect shallow L.A. values as they lurch about in the throes of conflicts that harken uneasily back to Oedipus. Both are attracted like moths to the pretty barmaid Roberta (Christine Marie Burke), an enigmatic, absent-minded muse with overtones of Medea. O-Lan Jones is an earthy presence as Nester’s wife.

Walker’s evocative staging makes brilliant use of music by Robert Oriol--some of the images linger like dream fragments long after we’ve returned to more familiar landscapes.

Philip Brandes

“Wilfredo,” 2100 Theatre, 5615 San Vicente Blvd. (at Hauser Boulevard), L.A. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends June 8. $20. (323) 692-2652. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.