‘Secrets’ grapples with the unknown

Sandwiched between “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Man of La Mancha” in Rubicon Theatre Company’s three-play tribute to playwright Dale Wasserman, “Open Secrets” is a new work that flaunts its unfamiliarity even as it reinforces themes from Wasserman’s twin career pillars.

Any impenetrability is purely intentional in this pair of one-acts inspired by novelist Ken Kesey’s artistic dictum that “the need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.” They approach this theme from opposing microscopic and macroscopic angles, however.

The opener, “The Stallion Howl,” is a narrowly focused character study that wryly turns the conventional ideal of total openness in a marriage on its head. A happily married small-town newspaper editor, Carl (Eric Lange), discovers that his wife, Geneva (Gigi Bermingham), a former actress of Italian descent, has inherited the lion’s share of a notorious womanizer’s large estate. Carl’s discomfort over the revelation that his “perfect” wife had a significant prior relationship that he knew nothing about is compounded by her refusal to discuss it. For Geneva, to do so would be a repudiation of the trust on which they have built their present life.

With her thick Mediterranean accent and thatch of red hair, Bermingham’s Geneva seems to be channeling pundit Arianna Huffington (a refreshingly incongruous affinity in a character given to reticence -- though also a bit distracting). She remains both inscrutable to and wiser than the men vying for her affection -- not only Carl but a smitten New York attorney (David Birney) who is administering the inheritance. Cliff De Young shines as Carl’s crusty, maladroit compositor.

Carl is a decent guy, but as Geneva points out, he’s “not quite full grown” -- a trait he shares with Wasserman’s other man-child icons, Randle P. McMurphy and Don Quixote. Lange’s tight grip on Carl’s dignity keeps him from tapping his inner Ralph Kramden, muting a great deal of the potential humor in this unexpected lesson that sometimes “a marriage depends more on the questions you don’t ask than questions you do.”

Though not as tightly scripted, the more expansive second play, “Boy on a Blacktop Road” is also more imaginatively staged by James O’Neil and his design team. Against a surreal cutaway backdrop, a metaphysical inquiry takes place that evokes “An Inspector Calls” by way of Harold Pinter, with a New Testament twist.

Four actors from the first play demonstrate their range in very different roles. An investigator from an unspecified county attorney’s office (crisply efficient Bermingham), shielding secrets of her own, grills four neighbors in the disappearance of a mysterious Boy with no past (Taylor Emerson) who utters unsparing truths.

Through their testimony, the suspects reveal how the Boy embodies their deepest needs and fears. For a minister (De Young) who is grappling with issues of faith, the Boy represents the Second Coming; a repressed middle-aged woman (Karen Grassle) sees in him an abandoned child on whom she might have showered love; the woman’s oversexed daughter (Rachel Avery) seeks in his approval an affirmation of her own worth; and in the play’s most eloquent sequence, an amoral hedonist (Birney) looks to the Boy for answers in a quest for meaning he knows is hopeless.

The one-act construction leaves little room for these generic characters to breathe -- soaking up their dense metaphors is a bit like drinking condensed milk straight from the can. But while the line between portentous and pretentious becomes very thin at times, Wasserman still telegraphs his signature theme -- purity and innocence cannot survive the world’s corruption, but they can at least point the way to higher ground.

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‘Open Secrets’

Where: Rubicon Theatre Company, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura

When: 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays

Ends: July 9

Price: $25 to $49

Contact: (805) 667-2900 or www.rubicontheatre.org

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes