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The Size of the World

 ((Circle Repertory Theater, New York; 199 seats; $ 45 top))

By GREG EVANS

A Circle Repertory Theater presentation of a play in two acts by Charles Evered. Directed by Austin Pendleton.
 
Cast: Frank Whaley (Peter Hogancamp), Louis Zorich (Stan Merkle), Rita Moreno (Vivian Merkle).
 

Wow, you really can talk," marvels one character to another in Charles Evered's "The Size of the World," and the new playwright might just as well be addressing himself. Evered gives his amusing Off Broadway debut a fresh voice that blithely smooth-talks its way over some first-time fumbles.

In this quirky tale of a young man with a big dream -- the American Dream, in fact -- who rents a room from an oddball empty-nest couple in Passaic, N.J., Evered conjures up any number of theatrical ghosts while maintaining an offbeat originality throughout. Despite an unfortunate title that suggests nothing so much as an English Restoration comedy, "The Size of the World" sticks closer to its homeland.

The talker in Evered's play is Peter Hogancamp (Frank Whaley), a young man with a bad brown suit and no discernible past. A Willy Loman on fast-forward, Peter dreams of conducting hotel seminars in public speaking, even as his manic enthusiasm barely disguises his lack of anything to speak about. He's all style -- used-car salesman by way of Norman Vincent Peale -- and Evered effectively details the character's slow realization of his own vacancy.

If Peter is all aspiration, the Merkles (Louis Zorich, Rita Moreno) are all hindsight. Left alone by a mysteriously absent son -- shades of Edward Albee's George and Martha -- Stan and Vivian Merkle stubbornly resist any hint that time marches on. Stan has gone blind, yet both he and Vivian pretend otherwise. Their beloved dog (Kelly, not Sheba) has been dead for two years, yet Vivian plays tape-recorded barks to spare Stan the sad news.

With little plot besides Peter's futile job search, "Size" essentially charts the collision course of these characters, with the young tenant frantically running from the past that his landlords embrace. This plays less schematic than it reads, and Evered's chief accomplishment is in giving these peculiar characters some genuine poignancy. Watching Vivian and Peter develop a tentative , loving relationship suggests the heartbreak beneath what proves to be a very sad comedy.

And Evered couldn't be better assisted by his cast. Whaley, in constant motion, has the awkward grace of a marionette, limbs fluttering as his desperate hopes crumble minute by minute. Best known for his screen acting, Whaley gives a remarkably deft stage performance, a scene-stealing comic turn that ever so gradually moves into the tragic. Zorich is suitably gruff and stoic, and Moreno is charming in a low-key perf.

But the cast and Austin Pendleton's sympathetic direction can't hide the fact that "The Size of the World" is padded and takes longer than it should to get where we know it's going.

On the tech side, Walker Hicklin's costumes are fine, and Jeff Pajer's '60 s-vintage kitchen set, unrealistically too large by half, still makes for the most attractive use of this theater's space in memory. The play is performed on a traditional stage, rather than the annoying in-the-round manner that was left over from the theater's Circle in the Square days. The transformation, like the playwright, is a welcome arrival.

Set, Jeff Pajer; costumes, Walker Hicklin; lighting, Tom Sturge; sound, Raymond D. Schilke; stage manager, Tom Stone; production manager, Karen A. Potosnak. Artistic director, Pendleton; executive director, Milan Stitt. Opened March 20, 1996; reviewed March 19. Running time: 2 hours, 10 min.