Malcolm Raphelson, the old lion at the center of Jon Robin Baitz's "Ten Unknowns," is a hard-drinking, foulmouthed, underappreciated genius.
Raphelson's a painter, and the folklore about this breed of artist says he will be both a philosopher king and a titan of bad manners. And so he is in Baitz's heady, bruising play, which is getting a pretty bruised production at Signature Theatre. Raphelson's bitter and punishing within his diminished circle of acquaintances, an expatriate who's been hunkered down in Mexico for 28 years, shunning the squalid fads and vast unconcern of bourgeois America.
Timmy Ray James, left, and Evan Casey in the story of a onetime art world phenom now living in the background.
(Carol Pratt -- Signature Theatre)
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Though Baitz's writing is high-minded and bracingly articulate, the plot is nicely grubby. It's career-at-the-crossroads, even though Raphelson, played with rumpled command by Timmy Ray James, insists he chucked his ambitions years ago. He was hailed as one of 10 unknowns to watch back in 1949; by 1992, when the play takes place, he's deep into his Mexican funk. His reaction is hostile when his art dealer, a South African hustler with the fey and vaguely smutty name of Trevor Fabricant, says the time is ripe for Raphelson to be rediscovered by New York.
That would be the same New York that rejected Raphelson when the abstract expressionism wave hit in the middle of the century, washing this old-school figurative painter into the ditch.
"False gods and idol worship," Raphelson grumbles of the trend that rendered him an unknown for good. "You had to do it or you were out."
But he doesn't slam the door all the way shut as Fabricant dangles opportunities for Raphelson to get the last laugh. With redemption and a substantial payday in the wind, Baitz sets several characters loose to work intriguing and sometimes underhanded angles. Fabricant, played by Nigel Reed in a huffy, high-strung performance, practically pants over the money, while Judd Sturgess (Evan Casey, projecting twice as much punk attitude as he needs) grows suspicious that his hands-on work as Raphelson's young assistant won't bring him enough of a reward.
And then there's the girl, a beauty named Julia Bryant (the winsome Sarah Douglas) whom Raphelson just might try to paint. She's an environmentalist studying endangered frogs south of the border, warning that their extinction would be a dark sign of things to come. Nobody in this backbiting, grandstanding bunch listens -- and the self-destruction begins.
It's a rich setup, full of shades and twists and well-wrought moral debates that only occasionally seem better suited for the lecture hall. But under Rick DesRochers's direction, the acting is so overbearing that the dialogue consistently comes across as a vast hectoring tract.
Baitz's characters are certainly combative, predatory and egocentric, and that's about as far as this production goes with them. The things you can hear coming out of the script, but don't get from the yelling performances, is that these people are also worldly and extremely bright, with emotional connections that run surprisingly deep. Intimates know a million ways to carve each other to bits, but DesRochers doesn't seem interested in exploring them. He chooses high-volume intensity and dials it all the way up.
Unfortunately, that wipes out the relationships in the play. The characters just bang heads, and aside from Fabricant and his quest for a big score you can't imagine what keeps these people together.
Since the ties that bind are never established, the actors are stranded when they have to shift gears and show some heart. Most glaring is Casey's portrayal of Sturgess. With his sneering mouth and snarky demeanor (not to mention his big sideburns and sleeveless T-shirts), Casey's performance is so MTV-glib for so long that the great bursts of feeling he ultimately tries to unleash seem to come out of nowhere. As Julia, Douglas looks fetching but sounds shallow until she gets to a long speech in the second act, a rare calm moment played (at last!) for its insight, for the penetrating things the character has to say.
James as Raphelson falls victim to the in-your-face approach, too, though his prowling, ranting turn has the makings of something good. With his shaggy white hair and stubbly beard, he suggests a touch of Lear as he rails at the insipid world that's passed him by. James is a canny actor, and he delivers each insult with particular purpose and spin, but the performance lacks charm, and it lacks fear -- the traits that make him tick. Without Raphelson's fundamental attractiveness and camouflaged panic, he's little more than a crude blowhard.
Such are the broad strokes of this hammering production, right down to Stephanie Nelson's low-ceilinged, cavelike set -- a gimmick that quickly gives itself away, with a little more sunlight poking through each time one of Raphelson's canvases with their images to the wall is lifted away. The overall un-subtle style makes Baitz's play seem far more brittle than it actually is; the story's layers are flattened, and Baitz's probing tone goes shrill.
You can imagine Raphelson's judgment coming down on this show the way the abstract expressionism czars came down on him: In the benumbed modern world, monochromatic intensity rules, and human complexity is dead.
Ten Unknowns, by Jon Robin Baitz. Directed by Rick DesRochers. Costumes, Jenn Miller; lights, Jason H. Thompson; sound, Matt Nielson. Through April 24 at Signature Theatre, 3806 S. Four Mile Run Dr., Arlington. Call 703-218-6500 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
