Ungainly horse-racing drama Simpatico slogs to the glue factory; O Jerusalem offers a better bet

Actors Bridge Ensemble's new mounting of Sam Shepard's Simpatico is anything but. It's bad enough that this quasi-absurdist opus, which dates from 1993, is not among Shepard's best. In its familiar weirdnesses and rehashed Americana, the playwright strains to disinter another Buried Child. But the production doesn't meet the bizarre material beyond the halfway point, either, which would have to happen for this problematic play to yield a worthwhile evening of theater.  

The story superficially involves the horse-racing industry, but in essence it concerns two men, former partners, vying for a (theoretical) femme fatale. Bill Feehely plays the down-and-out blackmailer Vinnie, the role Nick Nolte handled in the film version. Ross Bolen is the mark, Carter, who starts the play lucid but gradually sinks into an alcoholic funk, while CJ Tucker plays Rosie, the triangle's apex.

With its four main playing areas, Paul Gattrell's surprisingly large set comes off as a cluttered mess, albeit an intentional one. Physically, one presumes, it's a conceptual gimmick—an attempt by co-directors Dustin Shaffer and Vali Forrister to devise a visual and spatial equivalent of Shepard's noirish miasma. Ambitious though it may be, this wider-angled approach points to some of the overarching problems with the production.

It doesn't take much to evoke film-noir ambience: dim lighting, some canted angles, maybe a solo saxophone. But the end result must crucially create a sense of claustrophobia—the feeling that the characters are hemmed in by fate and choice. Instead, the spacious set dissipates that tension. Richard Davis' brightly crisscrossed lighting tries to compensate, casting human shadows onto backdropped Venetian blinds while a fog machine spews out eye-gauzing vapors that blanket the playing area.

Unfortunately, the show offers a talky, dour, uninvolving series of scenes waylaid by dead-end direction, infused with hit-or-miss performances that make caring for the inscrutable characters impossible. Feehely goes through the motions but is neither blackly humorous nor menacing enough to galvanize the material, while Bolen's performance follows his character's nosedive trajectory. Tucker seems well cast at first, hitting an appropriately seductive note, but she ultimately suffers at the hands of Shepard's stillborn script.

The same is mostly true of the other players—such as Alice Raver, an actress with natural appeal and a welcoming presence, who tanks out in one-note vocal style as the sole sympathetic character. Only Ken Jackson, as an aging ex-horse-racing exec, manages to strike the proper Shepardian quirkiness in his portrayal, but that's mainly because he gets the playwright's most idiosyncratic dialogue. At least when he tells us that Secretariat's heart weighed a whopping 22 pounds, we learn something.

The only notable musical element is a snippet or two of Burt Bacharach's "Close To You," signaling irony (or something). Plus a chihuahua named Georgia puts in a stage appearance, and that stirred the audience noticeably—which says it all, really. Whatever chance Simpatico had to win the big race is left at the starting gate. 

Amo, Hamas, Amat

More pleasing is GroundWorks Theatre's O Jersualem, A. R. Gurney's politically pitched story about U.S.-Arab relations. Gurney's hero, former oil executive Hartwell Clark (Jim Wright), takes a State Department appointment in the Middle East at the beginning of the George W. Bush administration. His long-ago Palestinian lover, Amira (Terry Occhiogrosso), seeks him out, confiding that her son is a member of Hamas, and that a major attack on American soil is in the planning stages.

This information sets the stage for Clark's transformation from rubber-stamp bureaucrat to idealistic thinker, with the action progressing through 9/11 and after. Along the way, our hero loses his marriage to a Houston socialite, while rekindling relations with a U.S. Information Agency official (Caroline Davis) who becomes a person of interest in the government's investigation into Clark's politics.        

Occasional preachy talking-points aside—not to mention a bit of heavy-handed pro-Arab sentiment—Gurney offers writing that is assured and mostly intelligent, his dramatis personae coming to life with more than archetypal credibility under Melissa Bedinger Hade's direction. The playwright deflects his somewhat turgid subject matter with an intriguing, lighthearted dramatic device whereby the actors step out of character, commenting whimsically on the script's attempted gravitas and long-winded good intentions. With happy irony, it all plays out in one long act at about 80 minutes and is generally entertaining throughout—especially for theatergoers who appreciate topical fare.   

The focused ensemble confidently hits its marks. Deserving of special praise are Pat Rulon and Dan Millard in various colorful ancillary roles, who provide some needed variety to the three leads' consistently good if straightforward portrayals.  

O Jerusalem was originally published in 2003. As long as the Middle East simmers with intrigue and looms as a flash point for American political and oil interests, Gurney's work will retain the benefit of currency. The play continues through May 30 at Darkhorse Theater.

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