Nathaniel Quinn: Filmmaker

Reviewed by Paul Birchall
Highways Performance Space
Closed

Highways Performance Space’s hallowed reputation for aesthetically ambitious shows inevitably gives rise to expectations of a certain kind of production – one full of vivid imagery and cutting edge, ferocious imagination.

That is why it’s rather a surprise to arrive at the oh-so-avant-garde-y spot to instead discover a stodgy, plodding drama about the travails of Tinseltown and gay romance. The show is so stiffly rendered and so humdrum in sensibility that you wouldn’t be surprised to find it at one of the town’s many barebones showcase productions.  The bones of a striking commentary on Hollywood are undercut by clumsy plotting and flat dialogue, executed by a game, energetic, but unfocused ensemble.

The play’s protagonist is an artist by the name of Nathaniel Quinn (playwright and director Hunter Lee Hughes). He’s a former filmmaker who made one great Independent movie, but turned his back on the movie business after the drug overdose death of the star of his movie, his lover and muse Brian (Blake Sheldon). Now Nathaniel spends his life creating small plays in LA’s 99 seat theater scene, while fuming over how much he hates Hollywood and LA.  Nathaniel’s misery might be more profound if he didn’t have a rich sugar daddy in the shape of gay cable TV mogul Peter (Greg Ainsworth) who bankrolls the theater productions.

Meanwhile, Jason (Laurence Fuller), the hunky male lead in Nathaniel’s latest production, is advised by his avaricious agent (Rex Lee) to pretend to be hot for Nathaniel so as to encourage him to make him the star of the next movie he’ll surely create some day. Jason moves quickly to seduce Nathaniel – but in doing so, he gradually realizes that his feelings for the artist are more genuine than he first thought.

Hughes possesses a scintillating aesthetic, that’s for sure – his drama projects the idea of love as all powerful force, obliterating all other concerns or needs. The play features a series of interludes in which a pair of handsome Hindu monks (Shayah Sobhian and Daniel Bennett) fall in selfless love by the shores of the Ganges river (These are likely Nathaniel’s musings on a future film). The play which Nathaniel crafts, really a ballet about a love affair, is passionate and vivid.  The production’s highlight is the gorgeously atmospheric, Godardian trailer for Nathaniel’s hit movie, which plays in the theater lobby before the show.

Yet even while the dialogue all but declares that passionate love and art consume all, the story itself suggests differently.  Nathaniel’s existence as an artist is subsidized by frequent cash infusions from his producer sugar daddy, who is guilty of all sorts of criminal activity.  And as the story unfolds, we can’t help but see the characters as stuck in a trivial world where art obfuscates — rather than enhances — existential sorrow and beauty.

Part of the problem is the script, which requires another draft or two, at least.  The clunky dialogue is heavy with pretentious half-baked references to art and pop culture that serve only to articulate the author’s reading habits.  The  second half of the play degenerates into a clumsy contrived plot that lacks the artistry necessary for us to suspend our disbelief.

There are a few respectable performances, most notably from Rex Lee as the deliciously amoral agent, and from Ainsworth as Nathaniel’s truly detestable sugar daddy.  But other performers demonstrate a lack of stage experience — a problem exacerbated by Hughes’s direction, which is fraught with pacing problems and sloppy blocking.

Some directorial choices are quite bewildering, such as having cast members loll about on set pieces between scenes or in the front row of the audience, or having them glare at other performers and occasionally blanche when a line is flubbed or an entrance is missed.

The bones of a great play about the all-consuming nature of love and the profundity of art are certainly to be found here – but this isn’t the draft that is able to make those notions work.

Highways Performance Space, 1651 18^th Street, Santa Monica; Closed. Running time: two hours and 30 minutes with an intermission.