by K. Primeau

Rogue Machine Theatre’s promise of “complex, ambiguous” theatre was certainly fulfilled in Saturday’s performance of Never Land. The national premiere of the play, written and directed by Phyllis Nagy, wins the award for the most challenging theatre I’ve seen thus far in Los Angeles, a distinction that refers to Nagy’s content as much as my (now questioned) penchant for beelining straight to REDCAT to view experimental work. A word to the more modest theatre attendee: you will be offended by language, subject matter, and full nudity.

The play centers on the Joubert family, a delightfully manic bunch who know that their behavior “doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way we like it.” Sequestered in an obscure village in southern France, their possessions and patience have run thin after patriarch Henri’s thirty-odd failed attempts to relocate the trio to England. As his beloved Anne drinks her days away, their daughter (who failed to be willed to abortion) hatches her own equally cock-eyed emigration plan. Enter Michael Carver, an American immigrant to France, who takes her virginity and successfully denigrates the whole family in front of Henri’s newest prospective employers - Nick and Heather Caton-Smith. Things start to look up when Henri is offered the job running a branch of the Caton-Smith’s book store in rural England, but no sooner than he toasts his old boss, Albert, is the offer revoked and he flies into a terrifying blindness. To reveal any more would rob the audience of a well-earned and darkly satisfying finale, so I shall leave the plot at that.

The plays’ richly colored characters are fascinating even when embodying the most broad of stereotypes. The preposterously proper British; the moody, wine-loving French; the angry young black man - each is thrown into the pot and cooked to boiling point, exploding to reveal layer upon layer of actual substance. Katherine Tozer’s Elisabeth Joubert is intense and enchanting, operating at high stakes where more negligent actors might have written off a moment as meaningless idiosyncrasy. Lisa Pelikan seamlessly slips from biting sarcasm to winsome madness in a single breath as Anne Joubert. And you could set an atomic clock to Shannon Holt’s comedic timing in the role of Heather Caton-Smith. It is no wonder Nagy’s male players pale in comparison. William Dennis Hunt calmly celebrates the little things in life in his somewhat sleepy portrayal of perfumery manager Albert Montel. Bradley Fisher is slow to warm as Henri Joubert, going through the motions in the opening scene but catching his stride in his manic moments. The smaller roles of Michael Carver and Nicholas Caton-Smith, played by William Christopher Stephens and Christopher Shaw respectively, come off more as one-note characters. As Michael circles a whithered Elisabeth one, two, way too many times, and Nick embraces Anne in seemingly Oedipidal distress, the weakness of the direction only stands out in contrast to the refined moments.

Nagy has created a world in which Home is where no one wants to be, and try as one might, no one can rise above their birth status. A fatalistic universe, Henri will always be a menial worker, Anne an addict, Elisabeth unloved, Mikey scrubbing toilets, Heather lower class. It is always raining and all picnics start as romantic and end in ravaged messes. Bathtubs are an unnecessary luxury, English lessons and homemade suits a must, and through all the British pop culture references, a sort of modern Three Sisters arises (”This would never happen in England!”). This pastiche of sadness and desire is doomed from the start, but as Anne says of Henri, “He will carry the burden of me and run, so I owe it him and his schemes.” So too are our expectations as audience dumped into the theatrical space and allowed to run amok. We owe it to ourselves to sit and reflect on our nationalities, romantic relationships, whether we have good fingers for smoking or not, our absurd personal aspirations, and what better place than in the theatre.

The Joubert’s occasionally break off into soliloquy, tripping over their words with a maniacal twinkle in their eye, which does little to relieve the the audience of the at times tedious length of the three acts. While these moments breathe poetry into the piece, there was more than sufficient character extrapolation in the play’s body, and I often became stuck in my head and bothered by the abrupt switch to spotlight rather than enlightened by the moment.

Rogue Machine’s digs, the surprisingly spacious Theatre Theater on Pico, emanated the contagious energy that only a company confident in its’ virility can. The set’s imposing beige walls, broken by a stylized hunter green backdrop and select bits of vintage French furniture, center on beautiful wooden double doors which open to reveal more green foliage and a small rain curtain. In the foreground, a crack in the floor’s tiling spans the stage widthwise, another example of designer Frederica Nascimento’s fusion of domestic order and surreal earth tones. Swinda Reichelt’s evocative costume designs are superbly articulated, especially Anne’s silk and lace piece and Michael’s dapper casino uniform.

Never Land closes Rogue Machine’s second season, an impressive feat for a young theatre company that can no doubt be attributed to the visionary leadership of Artistic Director John Perrin Flynn. His intentions are by no means radical, but his manifesto on the nature of theatre (published this summer in LA Stage blog here) reflects a passionate tie to civic mindedness that is refreshing and in itself worthy of a standing ovation. Lend your hand in applause by supporting the theatre and its’ efforts to come.

Never Land opened Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 8 p.m. It runs November 15, 2009. Running days are Thursday, Friday, Saturday 8 p.m. Sunday 2 p.m.

Tickets are $25.

Theatre Theatre is located at 5041 Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, 90019 (Just west of La Brea)

For reservations call (323) 960-7774 or on-line at www.roguemachinetheatre.com