Stage : ‘So Many Words’ Worth a Listen

COSTA MESA — Roger Rueff’s new play at South Coast Repertory is admirably named: “So Many Words.”

Many, many. Engaging and mysterious words; daring words backed by bold thoughts; feeling words; sexy words; startling words.

They often leave one breathless, on the brink of a discovery that . . . never quite materializes.

The only disappointment--a mild one--comes at the end. At the last moment. Literally. And then again, one could argue, just as plausibly, that the last moment is the most perfect one. In any case, getting there is the fun.

“Hospitality Suite,” staged last year at South Coast Rep, was the first play by this Illinois chemical engineer-turned-playwright to be seen in Southern California. It was a comedy with a twist that pointed to the presence of a thinking writer with a skill for cogitation.

“So Many Words” is the fruition of that skill. The talent has blossomed into something bolder.

Any play that begins with the query “Does Stanley have a lover?” and then unrelentingly pursues the line of questioning for the entire first act is good for something. Like getting one’s attention.

It manages to get that of the other characters in the play. The plot (which it is best not to know much about) concerns a famous writer, Stanley Warner (Stephen Rowe), whose universe is turned inside out by that question, the result of a chance encounter.

Until then Stanley’s life had been fulfilling but ordinary. It included an agent, Beth Barnett (Cristina Soria as the ultimate pragmatist), a wife, Katherine (Chris Weatherhead), two daughters and an iconoclastic view of life. That view, a key to his success, is admired if not always shared by others, especially not his wife.

The chance encounter--on an airplane--is with a staggeringly bright and beautiful young woman named Pamela Avery (Lisa Howard), an anthropologist by training who earns her living as an actress and model. She turns out to be an uncommonly dedicated fan of Stanley--and the embodiment of his iconoclastic philosophy.

Pamela, who shows up in Stanley’s Washington hotel room (he is there to receive an award), upsets his apple cart in the space of a very few, very traumatic, hours.

What makes the play remarkable is its tempo. It begins in mid-thought, if not in mid-sentence, and relentlessly pursues an unexpected line of reasoning--eagerly expounded upon by Pamela--that never relaxes its urgency nor allows itself to be second-guessed.

Stanley’s recondite philosophies are made to be challenged and Rueff sees to it that they are. The play’s style is charged to the max: blunt, telegraphic, designed to catch or throw everybody off guard. Especially audiences.

Instead of wearing thin, the effect becomes mesmerizing. But Rueff is not a playwright who writes strictly for show. He backs effect with plenty of substance found in strong, firmly drawn characters. Even a waiter who delivers champagne has a crack at a well-thought-out comic cameo--a moment nicely handled by the liveried Robert L. Stewart.

And a play nicely handled by director Mark Rucker, who sets a pace and timing that honor the author’s intent. Dwight Richard Odle has created an upscale hotel room set, made airy and sunny by Paulie Jenkins’ lighting. Todd Roehrman’s costumes define and enhance character. Note the expensive but undistinguished clothes he hangs on Katherine, contrasted with the sexiness of the outfit in which he wraps Pamela.

Howard’s Pamela is captivating, not just thanks to her sleek and slender good looks, but to the peril implicit in her performance. This is a praying mantis--dangerous in her persistence, her directness and the ruthlessness of her iconoclasm, which will haunt Stanley forever.

So will Katherine’s diametrically opposite yet persuasively defended views. In a less flashy but almost as daunting role, Weatherhead easily holds her ground as Stanley’s wife. They share a crucial secret on which pivots a challenge to Stanley’s theories. In the face of their open disagreement, Katherine is Stanley’s conscience, becoming his victim, even as she strips “the guru” naked of his defenses.

And yet one must not leave the impression that Stanley is a mere bauble grasped at by dueling women. That would reduce the play to something it is not. Stanley is his own victim, suddenly impaled on the vision of his philosophy made flesh. Rowe plays him as the complicated creature that he is and even manages to infuse humanity in a character admittedly not much endowed with it. But what makes the play special and all that talk engrossing, is that it deals with real ideas and, in time, real emotions.

In “So Many Words,” Rueff, who only recently decided to write plays full-time, has made a quantum leap as a new voice in a gathering body of playwrights intent on challenging ideology and making the American theater a place for thought and feeling.

He’s someone to listen for. Definitely.

* “So Many Words,” South Coast Repertory, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends May 23. $23-$32; (714) 957-4033. Running time: 2 hours.

Lisa Howard: Pamela Avery

Cristina Soria: Beth Barnett

Chris Weatherhead: Katherine Warner

Stephen Rowe: Stanley Warner

Robert L. Stewart: Waiter

Director Mark Rucker. Playwright Roger Rueff. Set Dwight Richard Odle. Lights Paulie Jenkins. Costumes Todd Roehrman. Dramaturg Jerry Patch. Production manager Edward Lapine. Stage manager Randall K. Lum. Assistant stage manager Anne Kearson.