IT'S ARTHUR MILLER - BUT DIFFERENT FROM THE USUAL.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

`Broken Glass,'' a 1994 play written by the then-78-year-old Arthur Miller, is a case not so much of Miller Lite but rather Miller Repackaged.

A Brooklyn woman obsessed with the progress of the Nazis overseas has lost the ability to walk -- and subsequently becomes the jackpot in a high-stakes tug of war between the doctor who secretly loves her and her faith-challenged husband.

That presents a meaty trio of roles for -- respectively -- Diedra Celeste (playing crippled Sylvia Gellburg), Robert Picardo (Sylvia's husband Phillip Gellburg) and Tom Ormeny (Dr. Henry Hyman) at Burbank's Victory Theatre, where ``Broken Glass'' is getting a rare staging.

Well-charted territory

Unfortunately, the production, directed by Shira Dubrovner, feels more like a personal rumination than a fully realized drama. It's not merely that we've seen the playwright address these themes before, but that he has previously addressed them more powerfully and with greater dramatic heft. The play, written in the late 20th century -- and set before World War II -- emerges feeling dated.

The double crises of identity and faith experienced by Phillip and Sylvia Gellburg -- though bound to intersect -- spend the bulk of ``Broken Glass'' running on parallel tracks. It falls to Dr. Hyman, a one-time ladies' man now married to a good-natured chatterbox (Janet Wood) to be both middleman and -- this being set before psychoanalysis was fashionable -- interpreter. That goes for his patients and for the audience.

Ormeny struggles with Henry, who is a blandly written character anyway. The sense that the doctor is drawn into this mystery -- or that it ultimately holds any import to his own self-examination -- is missing here.

Picardo's Gellburg suffers methodically: over his wife's condition, over the state of his ability to function as a forecloser and, ultimately, over his own shortcomings. Picardo, who has shown a flair for angst-ridden underdogs (Pasadena Playhouse's ``A Class Act,'' ``Star Trek: Voyager'') figures to be an ideal match for the works of Arthur Miller. One day, he should play Willy Loman.

Indeed, there are enough echoes of Miller's ``Death of a Salesman'' (down to a pair of confrontations between Gellburg and his Harvard Club yachtsman boss) that ``Broken Glass'' feels a bit like a ``Salesman'' afterthought infused with a socio-religious overlay.

Bedridden and obsessed

The character of Sylvia (originally played on Broadway by Amy Irving) might have entered the pantheon of Miller's intriguing female protagonists were she not bedridden and so singularly obsessed with images of the Nazis. At the Victory, Celeste displays a believable fragility, and the desperation with which she clings to Ormeny's Dr. Hyman is authentic. But we have little sense of who this character was before her mysterious illness. Or of what she's doing with a guy as conflicted and knotted as Phillip.

Still, it's encouraging to see pros like Picardo and Ormeny take turns on smaller stages. Here's hoping next time they tackle stronger material.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

[e-mail]

BROKEN GLASS - Two and one half stars

Where: Victory Theatre, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank.

When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays; through Dec. 3.

Tickets: $20 to $28. [phone].

In a nutshell: Late Arthur Miller tragedy without the weight of his earlier efforts.

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Nazi-obsessed Sylvia Gellburg (Diedra Celeste) is the center of a high-stakes tug of war between Dr. Henry Hyman (Tom Ormeny), left, who secretly loves her, and her husband, Phillip (Robert Picardo). ``Broken Glass'' plays at the Victory Theatre through Dec. 3.