Darby Winn and Paul Turbiak (Photo by Jay McAdams)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
24th Street theatre
Through October 27
RECOMMENDED
Our lives, it seems, are abundant with paradox. As an example: members of one’s family can feel like strangers, even in perpetuity, while people only just encountered can seem like blood.
In Pascal & Julien, Australian playwright Daniel Keene’s 45-minute confection of a play set in the streets of Paris, a 12-year-old boy, Julien (Darby Winn, alternating with Jude Schwartz) pursues a relationship with a stranger, Pascal (Paul Turbiak) who frequents a café across from where Julien resides with his family. Headstrong and determined, Julien has decided that he wishes to adopt the seemingly solitary Pascal as his father, since his own dad, a bank employee, is distant, ungiving, and unappreciative of Julien’s nature and inclinations.
Pascal, a journalist, is indeed unattached — nor is he looking to be otherwise. He doesn’t wish to hurt the boy’s feelings; on the other hand, he’s puzzled by Julien’s efforts to engender a relationship and would just as soon be left alone to idle away his free time doing crosswords and reading the newspaper.
But Julien persists — then persists some more. Directed by Debbie Devine, Keene’s play tracks the characters’ developing friendship over the course of a year, in 13 vignettes that extend from one April to the next — with the arc of the play focused both on Pascal’s transformation into a man preoccupied with something other than himself and the precocious Julien’s growth toward manhood.
The 24th Street Theatre almost always impresses with their tech, and Pascal & Julien (tech director Nick Foran) lives up to that reputation. Per the script, most of the playing space is left open and bare, but with Keith Mitchell’s compressed but picturesque scenic design establishing a sense of place on either end — one side a café and the other Pascal’s book-and-record laden studio. The story develops dynamic through Matt Hill’s video design — a series of animations in white silhouette that move the story along from month to month. One particularly arresting visual portrays the pair standing behind Hill’s video-generated image of a holiday shop window, deep in December. And additional flavor comes with lighting designer Dan Weingarten’s softening hues, Jon Noburi’s punctuating sound and composer Bradley Brough’s wistful composition — the latter especially effective in underscoring the poignancy of Keene’s little fable.
What needs development, however, are the performances, which at opening I found a bit thin. While they suffice for a simple story, a keener exploration of who these characters are as individuals — a more aching need from Julien, a subtler loneliness about Pascal, for example — would deepen the emotional resonance
24th Street Theatre, 1117 West 24th Street, LA. Sat.-Sun., 3 pm, Sat., 7:30 pm, Mon., Sept. 16 only, 7:30 pm; thru Oct. 27. www.24thstreet.org. Running time: 45 minutes with no intermission .
