Land Line

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Atwater Village Theatre
Through July 21

Land Line, a world premiere play by Stephen Dierkes, is about a dying man and his efforts to marshal his courage and his sanity through a relationship with his life-long friend.

Suffering from a brain tumor, Terry (Peter James Smith) has been convalescing at his parents’ home in Michigan while John (Peter Larney) has been living a depressed and lonely life in L.A. Best buddies from way back, they talk on the phone for long hours every evening. A life-of-the-party guy before his illness, Terry struggles to stay upbeat, all the while harboring bitterness and anger, which he visits on his solicitous but none-too-swift mother Tammy (Katherine Cortez) and his taciturn stepdad Amos (John Dennis Johnston). His conversations with John are littered with illustrations of the pair’s ineptitude – his mom’s lousy cooking, her vacuuming around his bed and her husband’s homophobia, as well as their insensitivity. When John flies out to visit Terry, he’s taken aback to discover that Tammy’s tuna casserole actually is pretty tasty, and that Amos’s feelings for Terry are tender and compassionate.

Nobody — Terry, John, Tammy or Amos — is quite sure how to behave in this terrible situation. Should one lie or be honest? Should one struggle with death or make peace? The dramatic tension is built around the emotional turmoil undergone not just by the sick person – Terry is reading a book about staying positive and trying oh-so-very-hard to be convinced — but also by his friends and family, who struggle with their own helplessness and despair while doing their best to be reassuring and supportive.

In this kind of scenario, where the outcome is assured from the start, the quality of the performances becomes all-important. That’s even truer when the writing is straightforward, unvarnished by image or allusion, as it is here, and when the secrets that are eventually uncovered don’t seem especially startling or worth concealing.

Under William Charlton’s direction, the ensemble can’t overcome the script’s limitations. As Terry, Smith concentrates on persuading us of a man struggling to cover up his fear. It’s essentially a one- note performance, in which the glib wit and other magnetic personality traits that we’re told Terry possesses are never fluidly displayed.

As John, Larney allows his character’s depressive nature to seeps into his anemic performance in Act I but then finds his footing in Act 2, when he’s no longer confined to the telephone and gets to deal with Tammy and Amos, and react face-to-face with his terminally ill friend. Cortez plays a sweet, dotty old lady ably but with little surprise or nuance. Johnston’s performance is by far the most interesting as he extracts reflections and feelings from beneath a gruff unsentimental exterior.—Deborah Klugman

Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Avenue, Atwater; Sat., 5 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; Mon., 8 p.m.; through July 21, (323) 644-1929, EnsembleStudioTheatreLA.org