"Dream of a Common Language," Cal Rep, Long Beach, CA

Punctuated with exquisite visual effects and two notable performances, Heather McDonald’s Dream of a Common Language, directed by Joanne Gordon for the California Repertory Company, arose from an actual incident: the male painters of the first Impressionist exhibition banned women from their planning dinner.

This common language doesn’t just refer to a new way to paint; it also refers the grammar of the he/she syntax.

The play is based on a trio of ironies. First, relegated to the garden, Clovis (Beth Froelich), painter and husband of Victor (Don Formaneck), painter and one of the exhibition organizers, Dolores (Deborah Taylor), the family’s cook, and Pola (Karen Kalensky), artist, family friend, and adventuress, throw their own dinner party; they call it the Sopranos Dinner.

Second, though the men trumpet their plein-air painter status, they convene inside to discuss art world politics; the women remain outside to consort among the stars.

Third, the play presumes finished work and work in progress; the look, texture, and feel of the production, however, is based on blue-lit tones of vanilla (hence the dream), so to suggest a blank canvas on which to paint.

Though we don’t know implicitly that the men are Impressionists, they throw confetti at the canvas like daubs of light. The same confetti glistens like stars in and about the tumbleweed cloud that hovers above the stage.

The mood of the piece is somber and tombstone marmoreal; it’s Bergmann-esque (consider that doll that sits on a swing throughout the play) and moon-bathed. Stylistically this pallor permits splashes of color (a red ball, a bouquet of flowers) to be as striking as Clovis’s incandescent face breaking out in a smile.

The script is low key but riven by emotional riptides: the story of Clovis’s breakdown; her rejection as a serious artist by society and her husband; and the cause of her creative infertility.

The ending is as startling as it is puzzle-perfect. One of the dominant themes of the show had been the double-edged nakedness of women: literally, as a model for men painters; emotionally, as are having had their identities cloaked. Watch what Victor does to reconnect to Clovis.

Formaneck’s Victor was formal, if not a little stolid. He clearly loved Clovis; inadvertently, though, he commodified her. His beard made me think of the Rodin, which made me think of his muse cum lover cum rival, Camille Claudel.

Froelich’s Clovis was anything but happy. She was fragile, sensitive, and wounded; she brooded like a Pre-Raphaelite angel; and, though the stuff of grief, her asides to the stars and the forest were lovely to behold. Her changing moods dictated the climate of the play: she was the 19th century barometer of her gender: high pressure and ebullient, low pressure and depressed.

Performances are Tue. – Thu, 7 p.m., Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m., and Sat. May 19, 2 p.m. The play runs until May 19. Tickets are $15-20. The Theatre is located in the Theatre Arts Building on the south end of the CSULB campus. For more information call 985-5526 or visit www.csulb.edu/depts/theatre/.