STAGE REVIEW : ‘Shmulnik’s Waltz’ Stumbles

From the moment Shmulnik trips over himself on the way to center stage to begin Allan Knee’s “Shmulnik’s Waltz,” an Actors Alley production at the University of Judaism, you can tell that the title should have been “Shmulnik’s Shtick.”

Graceful like a waltz, this play isn’t. It’s more like an awkwardly overextended comedy routine.

The play begins in the old country. Our would-be hero, Shmulnik (Barry Pearl), is a professional letter writer who falls madly in love with the comely Rachel (Lisa Soloway). She’s flattered by the flirting, but her father (David Morgan) is upset. Then, while Shmulnik is off trying to avoid serving in the czar’s army, Rachel’s family leaves for New York.

Shmulnik decides to follow and find his love. It takes years--he’s diverted into China, crosses to California and works his way across the United States--but eventually he lands in New York. All of this is condensed into mere moments. While this part of the story isn’t credible, at least it moves.

But then the play becomes bogged down in the machinations of Shmulnik’s pursuit of Rachel in New York. It reaches its low point in two long second-act scenes with hints of gratuitous raunch--Shmulnik visits a bearded prostitute, and then he removes all of his clothes and enters what he thinks is Rachel’s bedroom, late at night, trying to appear as an irresistibly sexy demon in her dreams (we see his tush, but no frontal nudity).

Oops--it’s not Rachel’s bedroom, it’s that of her prim sister (Shirin Amini), the schoolteacher. Or is she really so prim after all?

This slim story was apparently modeled along the lines of a simple folk tale. But Knee added plot complications (including a contribution from “Cyrano de Bergerac”) and supposedly comic bits without adding any depth of characterization or a meaning that extends beyond Shmulnik himself. For example, any whiff of the real immigrant experience was rigorously barred from this patently synthetic production.

This puts an unfairly heavy burden on the charm projected by the actor playing Shmulnik. Pearl has a few amusing moments, but not nearly as many as are intended, and the other characters remain strikingly one-dimensional.

Jeremiah Morris’ staging seems threadbare on the relatively large Gindi stage (it might seem more at home in the cozier confines of the Actors Alley home base, where it will move next month). Particularly awkward are a series of images screened onto a backdrop--so dimly, you can hardly make them out.

Accordionist Nicolai Tarasov accompanies from the sidelines. David Shire wrote the entitled serenade--pleasant enough, but repeated too often. Too bad he and his partner Richard Maltby Jr. weren’t hired to turn the whole thing into a full-fledged musical--that might have made “Shmulnik’s Waltz” a lot easier to swallow.

* “Shmulnik’s Waltz,” Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Dri v e, Los Angeles. Saturday at 8:30 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. $15-$22. (310) 476-9777, Ext. 203. Moves to Actors Alley, North Hollywood, next month. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.