STAGE REVIEW : ‘RUSTY’S’ ASTONISHING IMAGES

The artistry of Richard Foreman or Robert Wilson eludes precise definition. Both men create a theater of cumulative impressions whose medium almost entirely constitutes its message. To be known, it has to be experienced.

In some degree, this is true of all aspects of art, but it becomes acute in performance work that abandons linear development for visual and aural abstractions more closely related to painting and sculpture than to literature.

“Rusty Sat on a Hill One Dawn and Watched the Moon Go Down” is a long title for an equally long but remarkable performance piece at Stages, very much created in the Wilson/Foreman tradition.

Imagined, written and directed by Reza Abdoh (who also takes on a minor role and is sometimes listed, a bit pretentiously, as just Reza), its images are much more potent than its meandering plot.

The plot gets lost in a maze of inchoate scenes more notable for the trail of impressions they leave than the story they tell. What story there is can’t always be found. It is deliberately fragmented and overshadowed by pure aura. “Rusty” wants to astonish, and does.

Its stage is all of Stages--from the spacious backyard to both indoor theaters. It has its monarchy, its Suzuki jeep (headlights on and radio blaring), its quarreling siblings, its pyramid, its Egyptian tomb, its levitating mummy, its lovesick vampire, a Monty Pythonish fat man in a fez, a fairy queen, a fisherman, a fortune teller, a Christmas dinner and Rusty himself--perhaps the most enigmatic member of this mystery, serving as a sort of narrator/observer and occasional participant.

Holding all those elements together are the sinewy threads of Reza’s dream play, by turns slow going and mesmerizing, in which we hold on securely to a single guy rope: the struggle of the vampire (Tom Fitzpatrick) to claim the girl--daughter?--Camilla (Meg Kruszewska) for his own.

Far more important than the events themselves are their texture, context and conveyance. A seductive mix of slow and highly stylized movement tells a darkly Scheherazadian tale. (Abdoh’s Iranian origins count for something here, including the occasional brief monologues delivered in Persian--presumably for flavor.)

The language--what there is of it--comes in short, startling gusts of poetry, lines connecting and reconnecting at odd points in the story, making an imprint in a way that prose almost never does. The mood owes a lot to Grimm and to Charles Perrault, but Abdoh’s voice is distinguishable above its inspirations. If he has created something occasionally reminiscent of the work of others, it is nonetheless very much his own.

Sona Chelebian designed non-specific flowing white robes and stern black suits that support the surrealism of the piece. Atonal Arabic chants mingle with Fredric Myrow’s faintly extraterrestrial music to underscore “Rusty’s” tone. Abdoh’s own arresting environments (they can’t be called sets) are inseparable from his direction and are hinged together by J. Kent Inasy’s changing lighting atmospherics. The total effect is that of a dream/nightmare, where everything moves in slow motion, highlighted by poetry and punctuated by flashes of violence.

“We live with our own mythology,” Abdoh recently told an interviewer. “We create it, own it, break it, disregard it. . . . In every age, we encounter challenges, new ideas, but in this chaotic time we need to be able to dream: to see the world from new angles, with new eyes.”

“Rusty” certainly offers us one artist’s deeply personal vision, even when it is a little unclear precisely what that vision is. And it leaves us wanting to see more. Since Abdoh is just 23, the chances are excellent that more will be forthcoming.

‘RUSTY SAT ON A HILL ONE DAWN AND WATCHED THE MOON GO DOWN ‘ A new performance piece presented by Stages at 1540 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Writer/director/designer Reza Abdoh. Assistant director Susan Sitnek. Associate producer Marta Holen. Original music Fredric Myrow. Lighting design J. Kent Inasy. Costumes Sona Chelebian. Sound design Bill O’Shaughnessy. Vocal director Irene Ujda. Photographic images Ron Frank. Cast George McGuinness Barber, Lawrence Bryan, Ruth Cameron, Dochi Chambers, Anice Clara, Brenden Doyle, Tom Fitzpatrick, Ron Frank, Artson Hardison, Meg Kruszewska, Suraya Nobel, Irene Ujda, Carla-Maria Von Wiegandt, Reza. Performances run Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays 7 p.m. Ends Jan. 18. (213) 465-1010.