Get Naked

One of the intriguing aspects of the South Florida stage scene is the "branding" of the many resident companies here. Instead of cherry-picking specific plays from various theaters, audiences tend to stick with certain troupes, regardless of what programming they offer. And theaters that thrive here do so in part because they establish clear, marketable identities. Case in point is GableStage, whose current production, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune, plays to the company's strong suits: solid direction, provocative material, and intense, emotionally demanding performances. The result is decidedly successful, yet another Joseph Adler production that is so skillfully understated, it makes a daunting theatrical challenge appear nearly effortless.

The story starts off with a bang -- literally -- as the lights come up on the title roles: Frankie, an embittered waitress, and Johnny, a hyperromantic short-order cook -- in full, naked, spread-eagled sexual congress. Their physical needs dispensed with, the play then zeroes in on the really naked stuff: emotional intimacy and the avoidance thereof. After sex Johnny wants only one thing -- to stay with Frankie forever. But unfortunately Frankie wants two quite different things -- a meat loaf sandwich and for Johnny to clear out of her rundown Hell's Kitchen flat. Therein lies the play's conflict and its theme. Is this a one-night stand or the start of something big?

Johnny waxes eloquent about marriage and children and the full moon rising outside Frankie's tenement window. But Frankie can't handle this kind of talk on a first date. Sex, sure, but romance? Getouttahere. The script from Terrence McNally offers the audience a vicarious peek at two ordinary lives confronted with big life questions. Frankie and Johnny are in their forties, ordinary looking, lonely, and painfully aware their lives have little meaning or direction. Frankie's wary of commitment, still bearing the scars, physical and emotional, of an abusive relationship. Johnny's trying to make a comeback after a failed marriage and a stretch in prison. He studies Shakespeare and tries to learn the names of the classical music selections that happen to be playing on her bedside radio. She's all pessimism, he's boundlessly optimistic. Despite her rebukes and sarcasm, he won't give up on the possibility of real love. And what looks like another sad misconnection begins, with the help of Bach and Debussy, to show the flickers of real romantic passion and its redemptive, healing power.

Frankie and Johnny has seen several incarnations. Kathy Bates scored big in the original 1987 off-Broadway version as the world-weary waitress whose cynical defenses start to crack under Johnny's relentless wooing. The 1991 Hollywood film version starred the stunning, stunningly miscast Michelle Pfeiffer in the role opposite the grittier, more plausible Al Pacino. The play enjoyed a popular New York revival last year and an added celebrity friction when its two stars, Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci, began a romance offstage as well as on.

The GableStage production has an on/offstage story of its own as Adler has cast real-life partners Avi Hoffman and Laura Turnbull as the hard-luck lovers. Hoffman's knack for comedic material and his lumpy middle-age physique match his character well, though his portrayal lacks a certain desperation and self-delusion, which would help give more credence to Frankie's doubts and fears (and more threat to the relationship). The guy says he's absolutely certain their love can work, but his history suggests otherwise.

Turnbull nails Frankie's defeatism and her sarcasm-as-defense mechanisms, but as with Pfeiffer in the film version, her features and physique seem rather opposed to some of what the script says about her character. The basic idea is that Johnny is attracted to Frankie not because of the way she looks but in spite of it. These, though, are minor flaws in what by any measure is an acting tour de force. Never mind the requirements to display one's nakedness in sexual situations before a room full of strangers; this play keeps its two characters onstage throughout each act without a breather. It's like an extended doubles skating exhibition -- there's no room for a fall or a misstep. Both performers acquit themselves with flying colors.

Adler's direction is particularly skilled and nearly invisible, as it well should be in a simple, two-character play. The emotional beats are clearly defined and the staging, while necessarily simple, is evocative. Adler uses Tim Connelly's set, a realistic rendition of a bare, drab New York walkup, to excellent effect. The décor -- and the sorry inventory in her refrigerator -- reveal a lot about Frankie's lonely life. Space has emotional texture -- the characters battle for the upper hand by claiming the bed, by occupying the kitchen. So do ordinary activities -- Johnny woos Frankie with his skill at chopping onions for an omelet, while the ordinary act of brushing one's teeth becomes in this production a sign of acceptance.