Gentle Voice on ‘Wicked Songs’

A cocky, 25-year-old piano virtuoso travels to Vienna, expecting to study with a master piano teacher who will work him through a performing block that is paralyzing his career. Instead, he finds that he must first spend several months studying with an aging, eccentric vocal teacher.

Worlds apart, yet more alike than they know, these men butt heads immediately. As we witness their story in “Old Wicked Songs” at Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater, we hope they will find a way to make beautiful music together, and we begin to glimpse the bigger picture: how we all need to find ways to live in concert.

Jon Marans’ gentle yet surprisingly powerful play was an off-Broadway hit and a finalist for the 1996 Pulitzer Prize. The New York production, rooted in two lived-in performances and seamless direction, was reprised at Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse in late 1997.

Though the Laguna production is suffused with sensitivity, it is still a ways from achieving the effortlessness of the L.A. restaging. The actors are still in the process of inhabiting their characters (particularly the younger of them), and the gorgeous transitions between live and recorded singing, which bridge the scenes, aren’t yet flowing.

The bottom line: If you caught the L.A. production, there’s no overwhelming reason to see this one. If you didn’t, however, then by all means go--give yourself over to this achingly human story.

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Separated by age, nationality and musical specialty, young Stephen Hoffman (Michael Matthys) and professor Josef Mashkan (Charles Lanyer) seem on opposite sides of an unbridgeable chasm.

Trouble particularly brews over Mashkan’s borderline anti-Semitic comments. This disturbs young Stephen, especially because it is 1986, and Austria itself seems to be exhibiting similarly veiled behavior as it prepares to elect Kurt Waldheim president, despite his Nazi past.

Mashkan’s comments trigger Stephen’s heretofore largely unacknowledged Jewish pride. This, in turn, draws a revelation out of Mashkan--a moment handled so subtly that you might overlook the clue if you aren’t paying close attention.

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This subtlety is one of the script’s chief charms. We’re never quite sure if or when these two characters might come together. When the story reaches its emotional peak, dialogue fades away, to be replaced by a recording of Schumann’s bittersweet “Dichterliebe,” the song cycle that the two are studying. A chronicle of the changing seasons of a relationship, the “Dichterliebe” wonderfully echoes the shifting nature of the pair’s own interactions.

Director (and playhouse executive director) Richard Stein carefully modulates the action, although for the longest time, the story doesn’t push forward with quite the impetus that it should.

Young Matthys proves touchingly vulnerable, his already compact body dissolving into itself as Mashkan’s revelations overwhelm him. Lanyer is an intriguing bundle of contradictions, with a twinkling mischievousness masking the unfathomable pain at Mashkan’s core.

Symbols suffuse this story, and they are a bold part of Dwight Richard Odle’s set design: a realistic music studio set against a backdrop of towering reproductions of paintings of embracing couples (including Gustav Klimt’s beloved “The Kiss”). The couples depict the love affair in the “Dichterliebe,” but they also mirror the friendship developing between teacher and student.

During an early lesson, Mashkan stands beside Stephen and demonstrates the correct way to breathe. Proper breathing is necessary for good singing and, much more elementally, of course, it is essential to life. These two must get down to basics before they can begin working toward unity.

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* “Old Wicked Songs,” Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. $31-$38. Ends Jan. 31. (949) 497-2787. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Charles Lanyer: Josef Mashkan

Michael Matthys: Stephen Hoffman

A Laguna Playhouse production. Written by Jon Marans. Directed by Richard Stein. Set and costumes: Dwight Richard Odle. Lights: Paulie Jenkins. Sound: David Edwards. Stage manager: Nancy Staiger.