by Miriam Rosen

The Los Angeles premiere at Rogue Machine Theatre of Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited garnered across-the-board critical acclaim and sold-out houses during the initial weeks of its run in 2010. After a two-week holiday hiatus, the production has resumed an extended run through January 31.

Commissioned by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the play pits a black Christian ex-con against a white atheist university professor in a two-hour conversation — with possible life-or-death consequences — within the confines of a cramped New York tenement apartment.

Director John Perrin Flynn and his actors, Tucker Smallwood as Black and Ron Bottitta as White, reflect on their experience with The Sunset Limited.

Director John Perrin Flynn

Flynn recalls his initial reaction. “As I read it, I found myself considering three interpretations and I set out to see how close I could come to keeping all three alive. The obvious first choice is to play the absolute reality of the situation —  Black has rescued White from his suicide attempt and now has to convince him life is worth living. A second idea is this entire two-hour exchange takes place in White’s mind in the split second before he dies. The third is Black is an angel, sent to save White, who fails.”

How does he create three simultaneous interpretations of such a complex work? “I wasn’t even sure I could pull it off,” Flynn says, “but it’s there if you look for it. I feel I did best with the first interpretation, reality, and the third, the angel who fails. There was little I could do, physically, to suggest the middle interpretation – the split second before impact – but I do have White open the door for himself at the end.”

Smallwood and Bottitta discuss the greatest challenges they faced as actors in realizing these characters. Smallwood says his role “demanded every ounce of my stamina, my training, my talent. Owning the text was the greatest initial challenge. Memorization is not a glamorous task but it’s fundamental to being at ease and present during this demanding marathon.”

Bottitta agrees. “The script is quite daunting. In the past, I have had some, well, let us refer to them as ‘issues’ with committing lines to memory exactly as the playwright has written them. McCarthy’s text is so charged, each word so precisely chosen, paraphrasing was absolutely not a desired option with this play.

“And Tucker assures me both our roles are bigger than Hamlet. I realized I was going to have to rely on every ounce of Tucker’s stamina, training and talent.”

Tucker Smallwood

“As we worked,” Smallwood comments, “I came up against other daunting tasks: accessing Black’s emotional life and history, making personal his past and his faith, and making decisions about his reality, given the playwright’s beguiling ambiguity.”

Bottitta adds, “Once we got into it, I found the character’s mindset somewhat elusive. I got the suicidal depression part but behind every depressive cynic is a dynamic romantic whose life has not worked out as planned.

“Finding vulnerability is not usually part of my artistic experience. But I have lived through times of personal tragedy and despair, as have most people, and I tried to access the specificity of what my mindset was like before fate shook me like a ragdoll.”

Were “Aha!” moments found as they rehearsed? Smallwood laughs before answering. “Ron and I learn something about this play with every reading, every performance. As does every great writer, McCarthy provides the fundamental guidance in his text. Discovering his use of meter and rhythm, his tendency to echo certain lines of both characters, his multi-layered metaphors, bridging the internal transitions all create and inspire ‘Aha!’ moments.”

Bottitta says, “McCarthy’s writing is poetry, very condensed, very rich, but my major struggle was with the ebb and flow of power and status between the two characters. I had several of those flashes in rehearsal but most ‘Aha!’ moments have come spontaneously while working with Tucker during a performance, well into the run of the play.

“We’ll both feel things like ‘Damn, that wasn’t a serious line of attacking argument after all; that was a false salient to draw my opponent in.’ And our eyes will light up at each other’s realization and we’ll plunge further and deeper ahead. I’ve spoken to people who’ve come to see the play three or four times and have had a different and richer experience with each viewing.”

What creates the chemistry between the two actors onstage?

Tucker Smallwood (L) and Ron Bottitta

Bottitta continues, “This play is a boxing match between dangerous equals. Tucker is a force of nature, or something; an actor of enormous power and he puts it all on the line every moment. Working opposite him is demanding, exhilarating and requires my full commitment every second. It’s a rare privilege and something I look forward to each night.

“Most nights I get offstage and it takes me a while to ‘get out of the trance’ of being this character onstage with Tucker’s character. A few times we’ve met backstage after the curtain call and embraced and wept a bit, like total wussies. But it’s as much an expression of gratitude to each other as well as to Cormac and John, and to the audience for allowing us to be part of this transformational art.”

Smallwood says, “The audience response has been overwhelming. I’ve never personally experienced audiences to be so effusive and visibly moved by our work. This play presents two equally powerful and valid arguments between two alpha males.

“I had determined Ron would push me as hard as anyone I’d watched in this company. He was always my first choice, even before we auditioned. I trust him to react like a pro if ever we go astray… and we have each others’ back. He possesses the intellect, the intensity and the spine to counter my own efforts.”

Ron Bottitta (L) and Tucker Smallwood

The Sunset Limited was Smallwood’s first outing with Flynn. “He has quickly become one of my favorite directors. His grasp of the actors’ purpose and challenges, his personal style of offering guidance, his demand for discipline and specificity, his communication skills and his vision are just a few of the components which go with great direction.”

Bottitta has admired Flynn’s work for a long time. “As an audience member, you sort of don’t think it’s there until the play is over and you find the story has been clearly told, and the acting has seemed brilliant and effortless. That’s what I felt after his Treefall last season. He inspires courage and a willingness to take risks with emotionally difficult material. I feel he elicits the best I’m capable of. And I appreciate him immensely for thinking I’m much smarter than I actually am.”

Flynn interjects, “I felt I had to direct it as if it were real. It was important to find the truth one way and we worked toward that. I didn’t want my notions [the three separate interpretations] to exert too much control. I could no more than ever so slightly suggest.”

How did the design team help Flynn’s realization of multiple realities? “I owe a lot to the wonderful score that Sloe Slawinsky provides,” he says. “And to the lights, especially the light at the end, figuring out how it worked and finding my courage to go with it, thanks to a remark [lighting designer] Dan Weingarten made.

“Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s set seems to be both real and to float in some world between ours and the ether. And Lauren Tyler’s costume designs keep us anchored in this world but somehow suggest more.”

Flynn says, “I’d pronounce this play to present the most challenging characters and text in my 40 years of professional work…and the most rewarding theater experience of my life.”

The Sunset Limited, presented by Rogue Machine, continues Mon. & Fri., 8 pm; Sat., 5 pm; Sun., 7 pm; through Jan. 31 (no performance Jan. 28). Tickets: $25-$29. Theater/Theatre, 5041 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles; 323.960.4424 or roguemachinetheatre.com.