'DURANGO' CRIBS FROM MILLER, BUT WITH MUCH LESS DRAMATIC IMPACT.

Byline: EVAN HENERSON

>THEATER CRITIC

If Willy Loman had ever taken his sons on a road trip, the result might have been something like Julia Cho's "Durango."

That's if Willy had been Korean, if Linda Loman had succumbed to cancer, and if one of his sons -- I'm thinking Happy -- had been a closet cartoonist.

OK, so it's not entirely fair to line up Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" alongside any new play, but the comparisons are rather blatant. Cho, as Miller and so many playwrights have done, is sticking a scalpel into this notion of the "American Dream" and watching all the toxins leach out. That "Durango" employs a father, two sons and a parcel of unfulfilled dreams to make its points can hardly be accidental.

The play's rather heavy-handed Miller-isms are unfortunate enough. Chay Yew's West Coast premiere of "Durango" at East West Players also plays directly into the work's pitfalls. While Nelson Mashita makes a depressingly effective patriarch, the actors cast as the sons aren't quite up to par.

As a road drama, "Durango" employs some artful touches. A rear projection screen with video design by Jason J. Thompson has the Arizona and Colorado interstates speeding scenically past. Set designer Donna Marquet makes clever use of a mostly bare stage, even bringing out a swimming pool when needed. The production has the feel of an anything-but-epic journey.

Which is precisely what "Durango" is. Having been downsized out of his job of 20 years, Boo-Seng Lee (Mashita) packs his two sons into the car and heads for the highway. His destination is Durango, Colo., and the famed train that ascends a mountain.

The boys are divided. Family golden boy Jimmy, 16 (Ryan Cusino), is up for any father-son family time that doesn't involve his dad holding a stopwatch at his swim meets. Bitter elder son Isaac (Jin Suh), 21, went on too many road trips as a kid, and he knows his pop. He's about to go to medical school, but dad still considers him the family screw-up.

Between dad's lost job, Isaac's trip to Hawaii and the contents of Jimmy's sketchbook, there are more than enough deep, dark secrets to fuel Cho's dramatic tension. And to throw the shadow of the past into the mix, each of the three actors takes a turn voicing a key speech from the deceased Lee mother (interesting choice, this, rather than casting a woman to play the role in flashback).

Playing a man of few words and a ton of judgment, Mashita makes a quietly devastating Boo-Seng. The character is first glimpsed having a friendly chat with the company security guard (John Apicella) before being led out of the building. Self-destructing on the road, Mashita smoothly conveys a man for whom dreams come more easily than expressions of love.

Suh and Cusino are less effective. Suh -- who played the younger son in the play's 2005 workshop -- is all smoldering bitterness. His attempts to connect with Cusino's Jimmy feel strained just as his efforts at torture seem arbitrary. For his part, Cusino plays Jimmy's peacemaker tendencies far more easily than the kid's tortured soul. It would seriously stink to be a member of this family.

Nor would it be so delightful to take a road trip with them, either. The air of crumbling hopefulness wafts over each stop along the road to Durango and back again. The Lees can't spare themselves this journey. Audiences, however, have another option.

Evan Henerson [phone]

[e-mail]

DURANGO - Two and one half stars

>Where: East West Players, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles.

>When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through Oct. 14.

>Tickets: $30 to $35. [phone], www.eastwestplayers.org.

>In a nutshell: A moody road drama. Julia Cho mines Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" without the tragedy.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Jin Suh, left, and Ryan Cusino, center, play sons dragged on a road trip with their father, played by Nelson Mashita, in "Durango." The Julia Cho drama, which seems heavily influenced by Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," is at East West Players through Oct. 14.