RESURRECTION BLUES

From the high perspective of his years and fame, Arthur Miller's view of mankind?ever deeply concerned and often classically tragic?has in his latest play moved into the realm of lofty laughter. Miller's profound preoccupation with the personal and collective follies of humanity finds its current expression in Resurrection Blues, directed by Mark Lamos and overseen and revised by the playwright for this West Coast premiere. The play's approach, through political satire with supernatural religious underpinnings, shares much with such fellow engaged lefty playwrights from flanking generations as George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan and Back to Methuselah) and Tony Kushner (Angels in America and Slavs).

The imaginary Latin American nation of Miller's play suffers many woes: 100,000 dead in an ongoing 38-year civil war, children perishing from air pollution and water pollution, grossly disproportionate economic demographics, and a brutal military junta that has reinstituted crucifixion of dissidents, one of whom, a Christ-like miracle worker known sometimes as Ralph, has attracted the interest of international media avid to pay big bucks for exclusive coverage of his execution. Miller manipulates this combination of serious and fantastic elements with a blend of zaniness and compassion. Such appalling figures as the military dictator, General Felix Barriaux (played by John de Lancie with a deliciously bemused exasperation worthy of Jack Benny), and the morally purblind television producer, Skip L. Cheeseboro (delightfully played with an unconsciously depraved suavity by Chris Henry Coffey) are presented with wry Shavian nonchalance.

Other more sympathetic sorts?Emily, an ethically scrupulous film director (Jennifer Regan); Henri, a disillusioned Marxist revolutionary intellectual (Daniel Davis); and Jeanine, Henri's suicidally sensitive daughter (played with uncanny intensity by Dana Slamp)?display as much tortured conscience as any Kushner character. Both the antic and empathetic strains are combined in Stanley (marvelously played by Bruce Bohne in full dude-ness), a scrawny, lank-locked superannuated hippie freak disciple (perfectly outfitted by costume designer Lewis Brown with beads and patched leather vest) who enunciates his master Ralph's messianic message: "Don't do bad things, especially when you know they're bad, which you mostly do." The blessed Ralph himself is only perceived as an offstage radiance effected by York Kennedy's vivid lighting design.

Riccardo Hernández's scenic design consists of reconfigurable red sierra-topped flats inscribed with the articles of Venezuela's lengthy constitution. Supporting roles are played by Neil Shah, Michael Doyle, Jenni-Lynn McMillin, Mike Newman, Karen Zippler, and Jennifer Stewart. Resurrection Blues is by turns funny and thought-provoking, its venerable author seeming to have assumed the aspect of one of those aged Chinese sages in Yeats' "Lapis Lazuli," who from their mountaintop "on all the tragic scene they stare" and yet whose "ancient glittering eyes" are nonetheless somehow merry despite the whole damned mess below.

"Resurrection Blues," presented by and at the Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, San Diego. Tue.-Wed. 7 p.m., Thu.-Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 & 8 p.m., Sun. 2 & 7 p.m. Mar. 25-Apr. 25. $19-52. (619) 234-5623.