Despair lurking behind ‘Smile’

“I am joy and anxiety,” says the techno-assisted child’s voice that frames “A Nervous Smile,” presented by International City Theatre in Long Beach. Such conflicted emotions spur this thought-provoking West Coast premiere of the late John Belluso’s fact-based dark comedy about desperate caregivers.

Drawn from the 1999 case of abandoned 10-year-old Steven Kelso, “A Nervous Smile” studies the disabled by focusing on the family members who tend to them. As married Eileen (Francesca Casale) and Brian (Louis Lotorto) and divorcee Nicole (Rebecca Jordan) make their laughing entrance on designer Don Llewellyn’s stylized set, we hardly guess what’s ahead.

We soon learn. Wealthy, pill-popping Eileen and failed writer Brian have concocted a plan to free them from caring for their daughter Emily. The proposed strategy shocks lawyer Nicole, nominally Eileen’s best friend, but not enough that she won’t consider leaving her severely challenged 17-year-old son for an expatriate’s life in Argentina.

This establishing scene is realistically constructed and grimly funny. We next meet nanny Blanka (Lee DeLong), a vodka-spitting, Dostoevsky-reading voice of societal comment, her blunt pragmatism piercing the conspirators’ roiling subtext.

At scene’s end, Brian carries out a blanket-wrapped figure in a silent group departure that causes the audience to hold its collective breath.

“Smile” then leaps forward to the aftermath of the plan, with reversals for everyone. It ends on a coup from composer-sound designer Lindsay Jones, as Emily’s voice-over sheds its audio distortion and the title phrase takes on haunting import.

Belluso, who lived with Engleman-Camurdrie syndrome, a rare bone disorder, from childhood until his sudden death last February at age 36, draws this parable with knowing detail and without judgment. The production counts compelling assets in director Lynn Ann Bernatowicz’s subtle staging, with smart use of J. Kent Inasy’s moody lights, and the expert cast.

Casale embraces Eileen’s contradictions, hairpin turns and weighted silences. As Nicole, Jordan’s nervous interior builds to a harrowing meltdown in the play’s most telling moment.

Lotorto displays finesse as Brian, although his climactic scene betrays the script’s drawbacks. The play’s topic really warrants full-length exploration, and Brian’s outcome feels inconclusive in the short form. Furthermore, Blanka is less a character than a device, through no fault of DeLong, who ladles on the Russian dialect but lands her zingers with crack timing.

Still, though the blend of wrenching pathos and sardonic humor is less than absolute, “A Nervous Smile” has gripping vitality. Its taut fascination emphasizes the aching gap left in the American theater by the loss of its inimitable author.

*

‘A Nervous Smile’

Where: International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m., Sundays

Ends: July 9

Price: $32 to $42

Contact: (562) 436-4610 or www.ictlongbeach.org

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes