Games on a Bombed-Out Beach

Reviewed by Neal Weaver

Shirl Hendryx’s play is set in an inn on a small Mediterranean island off the coast of Greece, where a group of movie-makers have gathered to prepare for a location shoot. Socially conscious American movie star Branson (Richard Chassler), who’s scheduled to head the cast, has insisted on the hiring of Brit director Paul Deckard (Jonathan Salisbury), unaware that his wife once had an affair with Deckard. Producer Harry (Drew Katzman) distrusts Deckard and thinks it was a mistake to hire him.

When Branson’s wife Lisa (Jane Hajduk) unexpectedly turns up on the island, it’s not clear whether she’s come out of love for her husband, or to re-establish contact with Deckard. She’s an attractive but perpetually dissatisfied woman who has spent much of her life in treatment with various analysts and therapists. Though she tells Branson that she fell in love with him because of his ability to take life as it comes and enjoy it, it sounds as if she’s trying to convince herself.

Both Branson and Lisa seem to think that Deckard is a visionary genius director — and he does talk a good game, expressing fascination with the ancient temple on the hill above the inn, and the statue from Greece’s heroic age which it contains. But as the play progresses, we learn that Deckard is eager to bad-mouth Branson, he threatens to reveal incriminating letters that Lisa wrote to him years ago, and he’s exposed as something of a fraud: a has-been director who’s been unable to finish a picture in the last four years. And when Lisa goes to his room, presumably to revive their affair, he’s unable to rise to the occasion.

It’s difficult to tell from his rather muddled script just what Hendryx’s intentions are, and his direction does little to clarify them. At first it seems we’re in for a torrid romantic triangle, with Branson and Deckard competing for Lisa’s affection, and that, at least, might have generated some dramatic heat. But that fizzles out, and there’s very little real action, at least until the final catastrophe. We’re not given enough information to really understand the characters, and none of them are particularly sympathetic, so there’s no one to root for. The talk about the temple, and the heroic statue, and the presence of a prominently placed, spot-lit bust of Apollo, suggest that Hendryx wants his play to possess another dimension; but if so, he hasn’t managed to dramatize it.

Much of Act 1 seems like idle chitchat, and the character of the Mayor of the local village (played by Jacques Freydont) could be excised with no noticeable loss. There’s also a sort of barista-ex-machina, a bartender (TJ Alvarado), who only appears when the other characters need someone to talk to. And an Assistant to the Producer (Stephanie Colet) exists only to serve the plot.

The capable actors are stuck with thankless roles, but they work gamely to keep the piece afloat. Thomas Meleck’s attractive, vine-bedecked set provides a proper Mediterranean flavor.

AhHa! Productions at The Macha Theatre, 1107 Kings Road, W. Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through June 22. (323) 960-4429, www.plays411.com/games.