STAGE REVIEW : ‘Fox’ Stuck on Fast-Forward

“The Fox” is back at the Back Alley Theatre. This is Allan Miller’s adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s novella, first seen at the little Van Nuys theater in 1981. It is a fine script, true to Lawrence and true to the stage. But Miller’s new production is a disappointment.

At least it was at Sunday’s matinee. The problem was quite simple. The players--Michael Horton, Linda Carlson and Gretchen Corbett--took the play at much too rapid a pace. Transitions were scant, mood went out the window, and in some scenes the characters were actually jabbering at each other.

This is a story set in a farmhouse at the edge of the woods in the lonely month of November.

True, the “fox” in the story--a young soldier--has to work quickly if he is going to come between the two women who share the house. His furlough is over in a week.

But he doesn’t rush. First, he makes himself agreeable to the women. Then he makes himself useful. Finally, he makes himself inevitable.

It’s a process, and we want to observe it. We need to see where the women stand with each other at the start of the story--their coziness before the fire, but also an uneasiness. They hadn’t figured that their life together would be quite this bleak.

We ought to see them brighten at the arrival of the soldier, a cheerful lad with the gift of gab and a knowledge of country matters. (His grandfather once ran this farm.)

We ought to see the moment when the soldier determines that he’s going to marry one of these women and get the farm back. We ought to see the other woman’s dawning suspicion as to his purpose.

When the end comes--an even more violent end than Lawrence wrote, but in keeping with his theme--it ought to be dismayingly logical, given what we have discovered about the young man’s nature.

Sunday, there was no time for discoveries. The tale zipped by on fast-forward, a hysterical melodrama from first to last. A common complaint about American actors is that they overwork the subtext. At this performance there wasn’t any subtext.

A pity, for “The Fox” can weave a spell with its image of the smiling young soldier who brings both life and death to this house. And Horton, with his quick grin, remains the only boy for the role.

But let him play it at normal speed, so that when he leaps on a chair, we don’t say: “Aha, a fox.” Gretchen Corbett, too, will seem less the standard old maid if she is allowed to take a breath and to entertain a thought from time to time. And Linda Carlson will seem more centered, more of a temptation for our predator.

Rich Rose’s farmhouse set, lit by Lawrence Oberman, is pretty much as remembered, as are Hilary Sloane’s costumes. But the taped bow-wows from outdoors need gradation: they are as loud when the farmhouse door is open as when it is shut. The show needs a sound engineer and more confidence in its text. Play it in tempo, and it will resonate.

Plays Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 7 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Closes Feb. 12. (No performances Dec. 24-Jan. 4.) Tickets $14.50-$18.50. 15231 Burbank Blvd., Van Nuys. (818) 780-2240.