'This Storm': Partly Cloudy, With Lightning

Rorschach Theatre lost its space, but not its mojo. The little, forward-thinking company had to leave its longtime home in a Methodist church in Columbia Heights. Now it has resurfaced in much cushier temporary digs on the campus of Georgetown University, with a full roster of summer offerings that it is presenting as "Rorschach in Exile."

If its first production in exile, a world premiere of Jason Grote's "This Storm Is What We Call Progress," is any indication, then homelessness may not be such a trying condition. Grote's play is both mind-blowing and a bit mind-numbing, but as modeling clay for a troupe that likes to get its mitts on provocative, idea-crammed and still-evolving theater, it's primo material.

The best aspect of this evening, in fact, is the relish with which the company thrusts itself into Grote's universe. As in the case of the title, you may feel that the point at times becomes rather murky. Even if things dissolve in an overwrought puddle, though, you are always able to enjoy the view.

Grote, a New York writer who will have another new work, "Maria/Stuart," unveiled by Woolly Mammoth Theatre later this summer, has called "This Storm" his Jewish-identity play. Enveloped in an aura of ancient ritualism, the piece falls into the category of what you might call Jewish-gothic. Elements of horror mingle with philosophical disputation. It's as if Tony Kushner had been called in to doctor a thriller by Ira Levin.

Director Jenny McConnell Frederick's production, in a black-box space in Georgetown's becoming Davis Performing Arts Center, is buoyed by a terrific Robbie Hayes set festooned with bric-a-brac; design-wise, Rorschach always has something cool up its sleeve. Frederick is also served well here by a solid central performance from Karl Miller, an intense young actor who effortlessly transports himself into the eye of any hurricane.

What's brewing in "This Storm" may not always be completely transparent. Grote is juggling a lot of lofty notions here; you shouldn't feel bad if you are not on intimate terms, for instance, with Kabbalah, the mystical teachings on Jewish ideas of divinity that at one time were considered so dangerous that they had to be taught in secret. (It will help immensely, though, to sit in the rows of seats directly facing the playing area. Frederick, Rorschach's co-artistic director, is not entirely at one with the sightlines; I sat on the side, and not only couldn't I read the 31 scene titles that are painted on the floor, but I missed most of what I'm told was one nifty little moment of surprise.)

Much of the play takes place in the weird apartment of an old New York lady -- identified in the program as "the Woman With Silver Skin" -- who is both some kind of spiritual go-between and operator of a recording studio. (In this character, well played by Rena Cherry Brown, you get the clearest downside of the piece, its reliance on a high degree of arch contrivance.) The Yiddish-accented old woman has under her spell a younger woman, Lily (Sara Barker). Together, it seems, they are waiting for the Messiah, or, possibly, for the right young man to sire the anointed one.

That's where Miller's Adam, a struggling New York actor, comes in. He may be only half-Jewish, but he is 100 percent conflicted about his heritage. He shows up to record a CD of his one-man show, "American Shylock," and is inexorably drawn into the women's orbit, a process that provides the opportunity for segues into ghoulish rites and scenes of torrid sex.

The more creepily the proceedings drift toward the occult, the juicier "This Storm" becomes. A scene in which Adam, how do you say, "acquires" the tongue of the archaic language in which the old woman converses is a graphic -- and quite literal -- sight gag. There's a slight bow to Hitchcock, too, in a silhouetted initiation scene in Lily's bathtub, in which Adam must inflict a horrific level of pain on the woman whom he's come to love.

Barker plays along satisfactorily as the acolyte slowly supplanted by Adam in the old woman's scheme. The layers of philosophical digression tend to drown the actors' work in wordiness, however. You wish at times the playwright would not worry so much about scoring dialectical points and just tell the story.

And yet, whenever sparks manage to fly in "This Storm," you're reminded that the voice is nothing if both theatrical and original.

This Storm I s What We Call Progress, by Jason Grote. Directed by Jenny McConnell Frederick. Costumes, Franklin Labovitz; set, Robbie Hayes; sound, Matt Frederick; lighting, David C. Ghatan; props, Francoise Bastien. About 2 1/2 hours. Through July 20 at Davis Performing Arts Center, Georgetown University. Visit http://www.boxofficetickets.com/rorschach.