Dreaming of the movies

“Stones in His Pockets,” a play about making a movie, illustrates a dramatic difference between the mediums. While the pursuit of verisimilitude on film can burn through vast quantities of money, personnel and supplies, a play requires just a couple of quicksilver actors to conjure an entire world.

It’s a neat little display of theater magic. Or, at least, it can be. The tricks aren’t working as well as they should in the wan Mark Taper Forum production that introduces the popular comedy to Los Angeles.

Marie Jones’ play emerged out of Ireland in 1999 to become a much talked about phenomenon at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, then on the West End and Broadway, before showing up on the schedules of theaters everywhere. The abundant coverage suggests that the original actors and their director worked a comic miracle in evoking a rural Irish village full of colorful characters, as well as the self-obsessed moviemakers who invade the town to film there.

The Taper production features two capable actors -- JD Cullum, a stalwart presence on local stages, and Barry McEvoy -- and a competent director, Neel Keller. But their tendency to exaggerate a play that’s already exaggerated has the backhanded effect of revealing just how slight the script is. They elicit a fair number of laughs anyway, but they don’t deliver anything that might reasonably be described as a tour de force.

Jones’ script juxtaposes the human propensity to dream against an industry that, as depicted here anyway, has arisen not just to feed but to feed off those dreams. The setting is Ireland’s County Kerry, which has been chosen by an international filmmaking team intent on using the verdant landscape as a ready-made backdrop for a piece of hokum that imitates such mood-setters as “The Quiet Man” and “Ryan’s Daughter.” Hired as extras, the star-struck locals -- dressed as peasants and expected to look dispossessed -- soon realize they’ve been reduced to stereotypes, while the Hollywood stars make a frightful mess of the residents’ customs, not to mention their accent.

The goings-on are viewed through the eyes of two such locals, men in their early to mid-30s who’ve watched the agrarian economy tank and, with it, their hopes for the future. So now they dream of getting into the movies and scoring some fast cash.

Cullum and McEvoy portray the two, respectively named Jake and Charlie, as well as an additional 13 characters between them. Affable and earnest as the central duo, the actors -- through instant shifts in body language and vocal timbre -- go on to portray:

* Hollywood superstar Caroline Giovanni, who, as embodied by McEvoy, keeps one hand perpetually tucked behind her ear, as though to hold back her luxurious tresses. When she walks, her swiveling derriere is sex in motion, and her every pose whispers “come hither.”

* A low-level assistant director named Aisling, who, as played by Cullum, sashays pertly among the extras, herding them around with her wrists thrust out like bird wings. Whenever she hears a command in her headset, she stops in her tracks, a hand flies up to the earpiece, and her eyes go wide, as though God himself were speaking.

* Such locals as Mickey (Cullum), a wizened, hunched-over old sot who, in a piercing voice -- for he seems to be hard of hearing -- tells anyone who will listen that he’s one of the few still-living extras who appeared in “The Quiet Man.”

Costume changes are limited to the onstage switching of jackets, shoes and other minor accessories. Set changes on the virtually bare stage involve a rolling trunk that becomes a bathroom sink, a bed, a shuttle bus seat, a desk and so on.

Given California’s stubbornly balky economy, the script’s evocation of hard times -- salved by the illusory escape of the movies -- would seem to be particularly apropos at the moment. But the script isn’t substantial enough to operate on an intellectual level.

The quips about Hollywood, for instance, are just true enough to earn a quick laugh, yet are entirely predictable.

Charlie: “Talent is talent; it wins through in the end.”

Jake: “You don’t believe that, do ya?”

Or an assistant director named Simon, who gripes that the director’s “not happy with the cows.... He says they’re not Irish enough.”

The material seems thinner still when filtered through a director and actors who keep winking at the audience, in effect satirizing what is already written as a satire. As a result, so little truth remains that the humor isn’t all that funny anymore.

Further deflating the fun is an abrupt turn toward tragedy (without giving away too much, let’s just say it’s what gives the play its title) that this paper-thin, warmed-over scenario just can’t sustain. (If it all seems oddly familiar, by the way, it is, perhaps, because many of the same ideas drive Martin McDonagh’s “The Cripple of Inishmaan.”)

When its roots are showing, as they are at the Taper, “Stones in His Pockets” is exposed as a mere actors’ showcase, which, because of its minimal staging and casting requirements, appeals to programmers who must keep an eye on the bottom line.

As light summer fare, it’s appropriate enough. It breezes along in less than two hours, it doesn’t require much thought and it gets a few easy laughs. Perhaps that’s enough. But theater’s power lies in its ability to make us expect so much more.

*

‘Stones in His Pockets’

Where: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When: Tuesdays to Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Also July 14, 2:30 p.m. On July 18, 2:30 p.m. only.

Ends: July 18

Price: $33-$47

Contact: (213) 628-2772

Running Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

JD Cullum...Jake and others

Barry McEvoy...Charlie and others

Written by Marie Jones. Directed by Neel Keller. Set Richard Hoover. Costumes Candice Cain. Lighting Rand Ryan. Sound Jon Gottlieb. Musical staging Ken Roht. Production stage manager James T. McDermott.