Love and War: 'Salvador Dali' Makes It Real

A beauty with an ugly name. That's "References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot," the whimsical yet absorbing romantic drama getting a wise, passionate production by Rorschach Theatre.

That windy, rarefied title might lead you to expect lyricism run amok, and for the first few moments, it seems that's where playwright Jose Rivera is headed. How else would you describe a play that quickly introduces the Moon, played by the purring Scott McCormick in a white suit standing on top of a refrigerator? With his pencil mustache and smutty way with purple prose, the figure's resemblance to Tennessee Williams seems wholly intentional.

Then there's a wily coyote, played with swagger by Danny Gavigan in tight jeans and pointy cowboy boots, aggressively flirting with Yasmin Tuazon as a housecat, looking delicate in a soft white skirt. (The witty costumes are by Pei Lee.) Their howling and pugnacious love banter feels like late Sam Shepard crossed with a smart Warner Bros. cartoon.

But this is mere child's play compared with the riveting main event: a long, bruising encounter between Gabriela and Benito, a military wife and her soldier husband who's briefly home on leave. Rivera's writing becomes incisively realistic once the unexpectedly vivid Benito arrives; although he's framed in fantasy and often cloaked in rapturous language, the character shapes up as an unusually compelling stage portrait of a soldier.

Apparently Rivera drew a bit from real life; his brother served in the first Gulf War. So did Benito, who can be brilliantly plain-spoken. He is an action figure, but no dummy: More than once, the career soldier deftly parodies his wife's penchant for flowery similes. Gabriela, on the other hand, is a moon-gazer, the character who murmurs that improbable title phrase, which isn't awkward at all in the heat of the moment.

And that's what "References" turns out to be -- a string of shifting, heated moments from deep inside a war-torn marriage. It's similar to Terrence McNally's "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune" (which plumbs a first encounter) recently at Arena Stage, only Rivera's play is more persuasively poetic and more plausible, more honest.

Director Shirley Serotsky has sure instincts with Rivera's shifting style, and her lead actors circle each other with devastating familiarity, trading barbs with supple romantic insinuation or weary brittleness as needed. Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey gives a fierce yet vulnerable reading of the wife, who has reached such a desperate pitch of loneliness that she flirts with the nearby teenager (the wide-eyed, infinitely florid Cesar A. Guadamuz).

As Benito, Andrew Price, his voice like a blade, brings a necessary machismo and dangerous edge to the play. But he also registers the hurt and dead-end frustrations, both in the military and in the marriage, that make Benito's drama as rich as Gabriela's.

The performance fits perfectly in its space, the small Sanctuary Theatre in Casa del Pueblo Methodist Church. Robbie Hayes's scenic design delivers cracked desert earth below and shattered sky above. And Andrew F. Griffin's lights and Matthew Nielson's sound design provide romantic accompaniment that is never hokey, even when a storm breaks as the show crests to a climax. Rivera courts this kind of excess, but he also makes it enjoyable. His sinuous scenes probe and twist, yet he knows where he's going: to the moon, if only his star-crossed characters can.

References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, by Jose Rivera. Directed by Shirley Serotsky. About two hours and 10 minutes. Through May 13 at Casa del Pueblo Methodist Church, 1459 Columbia Rd. NW. Call 800-494-8497 or visit http://www.boxofficetickets.com/rorschach