In his rambling and darkly comic play "The Atmosphere of Memory," David Bar Katz tells the story of a chronically self-centered playwright tormented by the emotional scars of his childhood and consumed by a production of his latest work, which happens to be a memoir.
Katz's main character, Jon Stone (played by Max Casella), uses his play as a kind of cathartic exercise to dig up the roots of his deepest pain, long obscured in the murk of his unconscious. To complicate matters, Jon casts his famous mother to play herself.
This form of theater-as-therapy proves arduous, for Jon, his family, the cast of his play, and — at times during this 2½-hour performance — the audience.
But Katz's cluttered family drama, which opened Sunday at the LAByrinth Theater Company's intimate, little space at the Bank Street Theater, provides an up-close view of an accomplished cast that includes Ellen Burstyn and John Glover, who bring a wealth of credibility to the roles of Jon's mother and father.
In his play-within-a-play, Katz pays an affectionate tribute to theater's collaborative process, as well as its therapeutic capacity for both writer and performer.
The cast and crew are depicted as Jon's second family, with interpersonal drama and conflicts that parallel — and eventually collide — with those of his biological family, who are gathered for the show's opening.
As Jon continually reminds the director and actors that he intended the lines of reality to be blurred in his work, we re bluntly reminded that Katz is employing the same technique in his own play.
He deftly achieves this by creating reflections of characters and relationships, like pairing Jon in a love affair with the actress who plays his sister, or having Jon argue comically about his own true nature with the actor who plays him (David Deblinger).
Regardless of how closely Katz might have based his protagonist on himself, there are stark similarities between "The Atmosphere of Memory" and the play within it. Most notably, both suffer from the playwrights' self-indulgence.
Katz, who is best known for co-writing and directing John Leguizamo's Tony-nominated one-man show "Freak," hints at the stubborn verbosity of his own writing when his characters repeatedly and unsuccessfully urge Jon to trim some fat from his script.
In "Atmosphere," this unwanted excess is most evident in the second act, when some surprisingly moving scenes are followed by oddly superfluous and ultimately failed ones.
Despite its obvious need to be cut, the play, which runs through Nov. 20, is at times provocative, and performed colorfully by a fine group of actors.
The very close confines of the space allows theatergoers to be face-to-face with the always splendid Tony-, Emmy- and Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn, as she performs in a less-than-typical light.
Her character — a pill-popping, alcoholic diva in the twilight of a decorated acting career — makes for an unlikely matriarch and a somewhat unusual role for Burstyn, but one that she handles beautifully.
She is joined by Tony-winner John Glover ("Love! Valour! Compassion!"), deliciously evil in the role John's villainous father, whose vulgarity is surpassed only by his cruelty.
The play, under the direction of Pam MacKinnon, includes a number of ill-fated musical elements. Some are part of Jon's production and clearly intended to be a parody — like the acoustic guitar-wielding narrator or the big song-and-dance finale.
Another scene, in which Jon sings along with a recording of his younger self, is meant to be taken more seriously.
Parody or not, the bleak music and singing in this production induce very little reaction aside from awkward cringes.
More importantly, it represents some of the dispensable aspects of a bloated but otherwise clever play that would benefit from more thorough editing, much in the way its lead character is rewarded for taking a more honest look at himself.
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Online: http://labtheater.org