Six towel-clad men and one similarly draped young woman kvetch about the insignificant lives they have left behind as they await who knows what lies ahead in Bruce Jay Friedman’s Steambath, an only fitfully diverting Odyssey Theatre Ensemble revival of a 1970 off-Broadway play that, even with Anthony Perkins as its star, couldn’t manage to make it past 128 performances.

The skin-revealing sextet do have their mildly amusing moments early on.

 50ish Tandy (Jeff LeBeau) has recently quit his job teaching art appreciation at the Police Academy, the better to help brain-damaged welders and write a historical novel about Charlemagne.

 The appropriately-named Oldtimer (John Moskal) philosophizes about the benefits of heart attacks over gall bladder surgery, recalls his years “hacking” on the China coast, and reminisces about seeing an eighth of an inch of Ann Rutherford’s inner thigh at the picture show.

Elderly New York Jew Bieberman (Robert Lesser) spends most of his time farting, gargling, expectorating, clipping his toenails, and otherwise irritating the hell out of Oldtimer.

 Blonde, beautiful, and barely in her twenties, Meredith (Shelby Lauren Barry) enjoys nude public showers, has only recently had her first orgasm, and frets about an unpaid Bloomindale’s bill.

Broker (Brian Graves) lifts weights when he’s not griping about seeing his fellow stock brokers make it on Wall Street while his own career fizzled and died.

Two Young Men (DJ Kemp and Devon Schoelen) flounce about, chitter-chatter in unison, and launch into “Hey Big Spender” at the drop of a hat.

 It’s not until about twenty minutes in that it begins to occur to Tandy and Meredith that they just might be dead, and not surprisingly, neither is thrilled with the realization. (Meredith: I haven’t even bought any bust harnesses.)

 Thankfully for both, help might just be provided by attendant Morty (Paul Rodriguez), whose barked out orders to a futuristic console (“I want that Pontiac moving south past Hermosa Beach to crash into the light blue Eldorado coming the other way. Make it a head-on collision.”) suggest that the Puerto Rican (whose name almost rhymes with muerte) just might be The Man In Charge.

 Steambath’s first act isn’t without the occasional laugh, some of them provided by a tap-dancing butler named Gottlieb (Yusuf Yildiz) who dispenses milk shakes and popcorn, but a little of playwright Friedman’s unappealing characters goes a long, long way, and by Act Two’s brief introduction of a Longshoreman (Anthony Rutowicz) and a Young Girl (Shay Denison) for reasons known only to Friedman and God, Steambath has long run out of steam.

A game cast does their best with the material they’re given under Ron Sossi’s direction, but ultimately the only thing worth remembering about the Odyssey’s latest is its impressive production design.

 Scenic designer Gary Guidinger has created an authentic-looking bath house down to its minutest detail (kudos too to properties designer Josh La Cour), and costume designer Mylette Nora knows her way around men’s boxers and bath towels.

Add to that Chu-Hsuan Chang’s dramatically varied lighting and Christopher Moscatiello’s alternately playful/otherworldly sound design and you’ve got a design package that might be described as “worth the price of admission” were there anything else (other than Dagney Kerr’s fun choreography and some impressive steam effects) worth seeing.

 Margaret Starbuck and Alex Weber are assistant directors. Morgan Wilday is production stage manager and Izaura Avitia is stage manager. Peter Pasco alternates with Rodriguez as Morty.

Debuting the year after Sossi founded the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, the company’s latest offering has not aged nearly as well as the soon-to-be fifty-year-old West Los Angeles treasure. Despite sporadic chuckles, Steambath should have been left on the shelf.

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 South Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles.
www.odysseytheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
November 23, 2018
Photos: Enci Box

Tags: Bruce Jay Friedman, Los Angeles Theater Review, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble