‘Iceland’ dances around real issues

She wants fidelity, he wants freedom. She’s thinking of children, he thinks of his work as offspring. Writer-director-performer Roger Guenveur Smith plumbs this familiar romantic crevasse in “Iceland,” his rambling, trippy choreopoem playing this weekend at REDCAT. What he finds is visually dazzling, but a little empty.

The setup is simple: The charismatic Smith portrays a painter in fresh love with a Jamaican dancer (the superb Treva Offutt, formerly of Urban Bush Women). His character goes off to Iceland in pursuit of dramatic landscapes -- in other words, to avoid getting serious. Is his allergy to long-term mating healthy skepticism or pure narcissism? A matter of being an artist, being a conscious black man, or just being Roger?

“Iceland” may purport to be about soul, but it really celebrates the body. On a bare stage, dressed in white, Smith and Offutt seduce and spar their way through a relationship to the rhythms of Marc Anthony Thompson’s ambient sound. These two performers move with tremendous physical grace and wit, and both are terrific mimics. With a twist of a hip or a sudden vocal drop, they conjure the icons, strangers and ghosts who make up the worlds in which these characters travel. (Sightings include James Baldwin, Don Cornelius and John Coltrane.)

Yes, there’s talk, but the truth of their affair is expressed by an arresting set of gestures. An argument morphs into an agitated dance; longing erupts as a convulsive shudder. Offutt’s sinuous, vital style hypnotizes: When she moves, you can’t take your eyes off her.

Smith is a gifted contradiction. With his undulant cool, he can syncopate structured narratives, from “Do the Right Thing” through his Obie-winning turn as Huey P. Newton to last year’s “American Gangster.” But when it comes to his favorite subject -- himself -- he seems to get stuck in a circle.

This wry brood on commitment phobia gets old without growing wise. Savvy enough to admit his issues (the dancer remarks dryly that petulance isn’t becoming to her lover), he’s not rigorous enough in “Iceland” to put a stake in them. And although his stage persona may have trouble sticking with one woman, Smith seems never to have a thought he can part with. For all his physical control, he can be maddeningly unfocused as a writer, dissipating good ideas into self-indulgent torpor. Battleships have turned faster.

In the film “Away From Her,” Sarah Polley and Alice Munro used Iceland as a metaphor to stunning effect, as an emblem of both oblivion and endurance. Smith is still scratching the surface -- working, as he says, on “a self-portrait that doesn’t bite back.” As his piece continues to develop, Smith might consider playing to “Iceland’s” strengths -- using dance to tell even more of the story and cutting back on the text.

“Iceland” features a giant X-ray projection that resembles a ragged glacier on the edge of an icy sea. It’s an evocative image, but one that gets reduced to a PSA: Dating Roger Guenveur Smith can be a chilly experience.

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‘Iceland’

Where: REDCAT, Walt Disney Concert Hall, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles

When: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday

Price: $20 and $25

Contact: (213) 237-2800

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes