Moises Kaufman's "One Arm" gets off to a slow start. This stage adaptation of a never produced Tennessee Williams screenplay begins as if it is going to be "The Laramie Project" all over again (and why not? "Laramie" was a huge success for Kaufman's Tectonic Theater Project). The evening is set in motion by a narrator who gives the audience a brief introduction to the piece and a history of the source material, then asks it to understand this as a dark poem about the presence of "mutilations among us all."
Then the action begins. Staged with great fluidity by Kaufman, this is a story of self respect, shame, humiliation and the human longing for connection. The story is presented with film-like inconsistency: Ollie, a former prize-winning boxer, turns to hustling to survive after losing an arm in an automobile accident. It is Reynaldo Rosales' intense performance in the hero's part that helps this world premiere production pick up so dramatically as the 100-minute evening progresses.
The muscular Rosales is handsome to look at, but it is the sadness and solidity he brings to his character that makes Ollie so affecting. By the show's second act, when the play's drama becomes reliant on Rosales' performance alone, we fully understand how all of the men Ollie hustled would have been so emotionally touched by their fleeting, anonymous contact with him. We also feel Ollie's suffering as he sheds his protective skin of indifference and begins to realize the extent of his loneliness.
Previous scenes with Ollie simmering on a yacht, resisting doing a job that shames him, or finding companionship with an equally lonely woman on a steamy summer's night take on greater resonance as Rosales' characterization deepens. His past interactions with his johns and even his repulsion at their inclinations also become more potent.
The entire production is well performed by an ensemble of actors who so transform themselves between scenes that we almost don't recognize the same performer back again in a different role. Additionally, the design team assembled for this Steppenwolf/About Face Theatre/Tectonic collaboration makes a forceful impact (especially evocative lighting designer Mike Baldassari). But it is only when we realize how firmly this play's second half is founded on the snippets that had seemed unfulfilling in the first act that we come to fully appreciate "One Arm" in its entirety.
At Steppenwolf Theatre (in association with About Face and Tectonic Theater Project); tickets $20-$55. Through Dec. 19; 7:30 p.m. Tueday-Friday; 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday
