THEATER REVIEW : The Sparkle That ‘Ernie’ Isn’t

COSTA MESA — The wizard who eventually wins everyone over in Robert Forte’s new play, “The Sparkle That Is Ernie,” a visiting production at South Coast Repertory, does it with some awfully good tricks abetted by this show’s “magic consultant,” Johnny Ace Palmer.

But they’re still tricks.

Forte’s Ernie (Michael Lee Martin) would have us believe that he’s a wizard--a good wizard--capable of granting any wish. Anyone who doubts it--such as Steven (Bernard Madrid), who with his wife, Vanessa (Shelby Phillips), is having a party for old friends--is a glum jerk. Like all skeptics, apparently.

We’re not buying. Especially when it becomes clear that Forte wants to divide humanity into two groups: those who believe and those who don’t. Playwriting ranks used to be chock-full of polemical Marxists. Are polemical mystics on the rise?

Judging by the results here, not likely. The lameness of “Ernie’s” magic-can-save-your-life ethos recalls magician Doug Henning’s riffs about “wonder,” and even more, the savage dismantling of Henning-style magic by Penn and Teller, who make an art of reminding us that every effect on stage is just that. The difference isn’t between belief or non-belief, but in how convincingly the effect is done.

Every playwright knows this, and Forte is lucky enough that in the staging by Madrid, who also directed, the tricks come off very well.

Still, it’s creepy to watch a play for and about adults with the kind of unearned innocence “Ernie” tries to pitch to the crowd; tonally and artistically, it’s not a bit different from a preteen show about a wizard. But after “The Wizard of Oz,” what kid even buys this kind of fantasy?

The play is hooked on a pre-pubescent fix for the simple solution to life’s problems, which is perhaps where “Ernie” is most troublesome.

For as Steven and Vanessa’s guests--especially the troubled rich couple of Ellen (Darla Slavens) and Howie (Jerry Guerin)--watch as Ernie’s magic makes them sexier or more impassioned or richer, Steven’s continued naysaying is depicted as something hateful. (Interestingly, the supposedly happy-go-lucky Lori Lynn (Susan Tyra) isn’t meant to be hateful when she wishes that Ernie would send Steven off to freeze at the top of Mt. Everest.)

The worst Steven asks for anyone is that he or she leave his house--a reasonable request in this overly long play.

But, of course, reason is the real bad guy here (and we mean guy ), particularly when all those nasty husbands voice skeptical reason before Ernie sets them straight.

And, of course, Ernie, as a black man Martin plays with a vaguely east Caribbean accent, is the primal “natural” man more in touch with Earth’s rhythms than these New Jersey-corporate types. “Ernie” verges on a benign racism that neither Forte nor Madrid seems to pick up on.

Madrid, as director, can’t seem to pick up on the sensibility of his actors, he himself among them. He whines his way through his performance and lets all the others more or less walk through theirs.

Tyra puts forth some noticeable effort, as does Neil Gold, who portrays a single stud--although in his case the effort goes into his crude comic James Dean impersonation. In his crucial role, Crucially, Martin doesn’t exude vibes of any sort.

Neither do various treacly songs by Forte, musical director Mary Ekler and Jay Bolton. Nor do Omar Navarro’s blank white-wall set and William J. Crouter’s unmagical lights, which don’t master SCR’s Second Stage space.

The only thing weirder than watching Forte’s romance with wonder unfold (it ends with Ernie in full wizard regalia having the members of the audience stand to be granted a wish) is watching such a bad play on a stage typically home to good ones.

The real magic, as always, lies is in the artists occupying the space.

* “The Sparkle That Is Ernie,” South Coast Repertory Second Stage, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Today-Sunday, 8 p.m. $17.50-$21.50. (714) 724-9577. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes. Shelby Phillips: Vanessa

Bernard Madrid: Steven

Darla Slavens: Ellen

Jerry Guerin: Howie

Rosanne Massa: Julie

Jeff Jeffcoat: Ben

Neil Gold: Chris

Susan Tyra: Lori Lynn

Michael Lee: Martin Ernie

An Actors Company production. Written by Robert Forte. Directed by Bernard Madrid. Musical direction by Mary Ekler. Set: Omar Navarro. Lights: William J. Crouter. Sound: Robert F. Harrington Jr..