‘Telling Stories’ in Unknown World

SAN DIEGO —  In the post-”Star Wars” era, the words “science fiction” conjure up images of blasting spaceships, robot technology and splashy special effects that are only possible on multimillion-dollar budgets in state-of-the-art studios.

But true devotees of the genre know that the tricky task of creating a world that might be can also result in a scene at once simple and starkly human. The world, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, is not necessarily destined to end with a bang, but with a whimper.

Playwright G.F. Riker creates such a distinctive world in “Telling Stories,” a cautionary one-man tale about a storyteller (Richard Rottman), traveling from clearing to clearing in an apocalyptic future where no one reads anymore, telling stories his father told him, the characters and words jumbled together in his memory.

And shot through the funny mix-ups is the conviction that telling these stories--any stories--matters desperately in keeping the last remnants of the human race human.

The show, in a world premiere at Sweetooth Comedy Theatre’s home in the basement of the Maryland Hotel in downtown San Diego, is both touching and tantalizing as it suggests the image of a book-less future painted by Ray Bradbury in the high-tech “Fahrenheit 451” and H.G. Wells in the destroyed world envisioned at the end of “The Time Machine.”

Rottman, in a remarkable performance, brings the wistful, wandering soul of the storyteller to eloquent life, addressing the audience as if they are the survivors, pushing his stories persuasively through a mashed dialect in which plural nouns crash against singular verbs and “once upon a time” is metamorphosed into “one spawned time.”

Even the primitive setting of this basement theater with its minimal lighting, onstage pillars and folding chairs in a three-quarters configuration, seems the bare-bones equivalent of the storyteller’s clearings, where fires burn and families gather to hear short fables that he calls Asops, in which a character named Jesuchrist cleans the spots off leopards.

And then there are the long, involved “one spawned times,” where Tom Sawyer and Hucklefinn run away from Uncle Ahap to fight pirates and Mopy Dick and cannibells.

The stories all make sense in an odd, poetic way, rather like a child’s dream in which different characters collide with emotionally resonant results. In between the tales, Rottman, eloquently costumed by Penny Post in two mismatched shoes and torn coattails studded with mismatched buttons, brings his own character to life with tales of growing up in a town with “Folks screamin’ and the sound of weapons,” while his father comforted him with stories when he tucked him in at night.

The main failing here is that, while the world Riker creates works, it’s too fragmentary a part of the larger world to which it belongs. You leave wanting to know more about what happened in this future he projects, about who remains and what will happen next. You leave wanting more stories, perhaps even more narrators to “Telling Stories.”

If the storyteller could stand back, he himself might call this play a little Asop. It leaves you hungry for a more inclusive one spawned time.

* “Telling Stories,” Sweetooth Comedy Theatre, Maryland Hotel, 630 F St., San Diego. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 31. $12-$15. (619) 544-9079. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Richard Rottman: Storyteller

A Sweetooth Comedy production of a play by G.F. Riker. Directed by G.F. Riker. Costumes: Penny Post. Lights: Brandon Riker.