BEARINGS

Is it real or is are we in The Twilight Zone? One thing is for certain. Matt Chait’s Bearings will keep you on the edge of your seat for eighty-five entertaining minutes at Hollywood’s Flight Theatre.

Will Bradley delivers yet another magnetic star turn as Richard Kalvar, who arrives dazed and confused at Pasadena’s Langham Huntington Hotel, vehemently insistent that he’s a guest who’s left his wallet, his cell phone, and his key card up in his fourth-floor room.

Still, try as he might, Richard can’t seem to convince sassy desk clerk Chip (Trip Langley) that he’s telling the truth.

Richard says he checked in sometime between 1:30 and 2:00, but Chip is adamant that check-in time is 4:00 and the earliest a new arrival could have registered would have been 3:00 or 3:30.

More confusing still, hotel records show no one with Richard’s name on their guest list, his claim to have arrived without a reservation makes no sense at all since the hotel is booked a month in advance, and when Langham Huntington manager Jack Wyndham (Kim Estes) shows Richard the room he claims is his, it looks nothing at all like the one Richard insists he checked into earlier that day.

Still, there’s something about Richard that has Jack believing he’s not inventing things, and so he summons hotel security chief Mike Salcedo (Justin Huen) to sit down and talk to Richard, and try to get to the bottom of all this.

Per the playwright’s wishes, I’ll refrain from going into what transpires over Bearing’s remaining seventy minutes other than to say that we’re about to be introduced to a wise-cracking waitress named Connie (Rebecca O’Brien), a snake-loving park ranger (Vanessa Born as Eli Timber), distraught wife Holly (Valerie Larsen), a frisky young actress (Jane Papageorge as Nina), and Aunt Ruth (Allison Reeves), an empathetic hospital nurse.

As to whether Bearings will stick around in Rod Serling territory or reveal a logical explanation for Richard’s bizarre circumstances, on that too my lips remain sealed because, truth be told, I’m glad I knew little to nothing about Bearings going in other than the fact that it featured some of the best actors in town courtesy of Michael Donovan Casting, CSA.

The always electrifying Bradley is once again in tour-de-force mode as a man teetering on the edge of sanity who may or may not be imagining some decidedly improbable things.

Huen provides solid, sympathetic support throughout as a man determined to uncover the truth, and though the rest of the cast have only a single scene each, director Chait has elicited terrific work from all concerned, with Larsen’s distressed Holly and Reeves’ caring Aunt Ruth proving dramatic standouts.

Langley’s acerbic Chip, O’Brien’s tough cookie of a Connie, and Born’s weirdly wonderful Eil score abundant laughs, Estes proves a calming, steadying presence as Jack, and Papageorge’s seductive turn as Nina is a stunner.

Though shoestring-budgeted, Marco DeLeon’s ingenious set design isn’t nearly as barebones as production stills (presumably shot before any decoration could take place) suggest. Gregory Crafts’ lighting design is effective throughout as are the occasional effects inserted by sound designer Ross Chait.

Last but not least, director Chait keeps things moving swiftly, never pausing the action even during scene changes ably executed by Keith Gerstner and Sarah Fanous, who get their own curtain calls.

Bearings’s world premiere is produced by Erin Trainer. Jim Niedzialkowski is stage manager and Gerstner is assistant stage manager.  Fanous is “assistant to Mr. Chait.” Philip Sokoloff is publicist.

That playwright Chait manages to tie things up in a way that proves both surprising and touching is yet another reason to check Bearings out. Simply put, it had me riveted from its quirky, amusing start up to its unexpectedly moving finish.

Flight Theatre at The Complex, 6472 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.

–Steven Stanley
September 9, 2022
Photos: Eric Keitel

 

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