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          A man trying to make sense of things, a gorgeous schizophrenic blonde whose mood swings range from seductive to infantile to role-playing sophisticate – does this couple sound familiar?

          It’s not the first time Arthur Miller has used his life as dramatic fertilizer, more famously in “After the Fall”, his full-length play much of which was autobiographical.  This play has just two characters, Irish cop Tom (Jack Kehler) and Angela (Beege Barkette), the fantasizing prostiitute, reminiscent of Miller’s second wife, actress Marilyn Monroe.

          Tom has been worrying a murder case for five years but it’s just as likely that he’s been worrying about what his true feelings are for the amoral Angela.  Over the next 80 minutes, the couple parry, claw and tease each other.  Angela eventually starts feeding Tom tidbits of information about the case which boils down to corrupted authority, one of Miller’s favorite themes.

          The old master makes it fascinating.  In John Iacovelli’s decadent silken hotel room wreathed in cigarette smoke and noir lighting by Frank McKown, corruption hangs heavy in the air, immersing every thought they think and every breath they take.  Michael Arabian directs Barkette as a tigress fighting for her emotional life and Kehler as a man trying desperately to have one.

          Although the highly charged relationship between the two is dramatic, the play gets repetitious and the murder case is too convoluted to be absorbing.  In the Miller canon, it may be seen as another excision of a relationship he was still trying to explain to himself and us, a scab that he picked at until 1982 when he wrote this play.

          If you didn’t know who the author was, it’s a play that will cling to your clothes as you leave the theatre, like the stale cigarette smoke that becomes an addiction.  By Laura Hitchcock

At the Hayworth Theatre, 2509 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, August 16-31.  Reservations:  (323) 960-4442.