Running headlong toward adulthood

By Dinah Eng

March 12, 2006 12 AM PT

Special to The Times

THE two actors stand at the bottom of an 8-foot structure designed to look like a skateboard ramp. As the fast-paced rock music starts, they leap into action.

Run to the top. Plop down to a plank position. Turn and slide down the ramp on bellies. Chase each other back up the ramp. Roll like logs down the incline.

Run back to the top. Grab hands, let go and slide down in tandem, one doing a forward roll, the other rolling down backward. Run back to the top. One grabs the other’s hand, stays in place, and pulls down. Other actor slides to the bottom.

Stopwatch clicks.

“It’s only 25 seconds,” says Jacques Heim, choreographer of “The Stones,” which opens at the Kirk Douglas Theatre on Saturday. The play by Tom Lycos and Stefo Nantsou tells what happens when two teenage boys comically botch a warehouse break-in and decide to start throwing stones off a freeway overpass.

In this interpretation of the piece, directed by Corey Madden, intricate movements that combine elements of gymnastics, dance and plain old running work as metaphors with the dialogue to explore the questions: When do we learn the difference between right and wrong, and when must a young person pay an adult price for his actions?

The actors -- Joe Hernandez-Kolski and Justin Huen -- play both the teenagers and the police officers who arrest them in a 70-minute nonstop show that Heim calls “a cinematic theater movement piece.”

It is a performance that is exciting to watch and exhausting to execute.

“My body’s never been in as much pain,” Hernandez-Kolski says. “I have bruises all over. I studied modern dance in college, have done hip-hop and studied Afro-Brazilian dance, so I thought I’d be comfortable. But these movements are totally different.”

“It’s the simplest stuff that’s exhausting, like running up and down the ramp,” Huen agrees. “It’s a lot of fun in a boot camp, brutal way.”

In a rehearsal before previews, Heim keeps the actors in constant motion for an hour, working out movements with input from Madden. After running and tumbling on the ramp’s incline, the duo turn the structure around, using the back of the set for another scene.

A metal ladder drops from the ceiling, and Huen climbs almost to the top, then hangs by his legs, upside down as Hernandez-Kolski pushes the ladder into motion.

The two then split off to work separate scenes, with Huen back on the incline, improvising a climbing routine with a rope under the watchful eye of assistant choreographer Garrett Wolf. Hernandez-Kolski straps himself into a bungee cord and tries swinging into different positions without hitting the metal support beams of the ramp.

At break time, the men, drenched in sweat, pull off their shirts and sweatpants. Underneath, they’re swaddled in protective gear -- shin guards, kneepads, butt pads, elbow pads, neoprene back support, tape on ankles and wrists. Huen even wears wrestling shoes, which have tread all around the perimeter, not just on the soles, for better ankle support.

“I consider myself a trouper, but I’m working on fumes,” Huen admits. “You can’t just go off on a line because the choreography is so detailed. If I miss the ladder, I’ll be in traction in the hospital.”

Heim, the man choreographing all this, is artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Diavolo Dance Theater and choreographed the Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show “Ka.” Known for his dynamic, theatrical and nontraditional work, Heim knows he’s a taskmaster and makes no apologies for it.

“My dancers call me Napoleon,” says Heim, with a laugh that illustrates why those who work with him also call him charismatic and charming. “I’m inflexible and dyslexic, but I love working with people. Because I care so much, I want to give everything I have and push others so that they can succeed and push to the next level.”

Heim, who is drawn to pieces that examine the funny and frightening ways people interact with their environment, enjoys creating metaphors through physical movement. In “The Stones,” he says, it’s important for movement to complement the dialogue and not overshadow it.

“After three weeks of intensive rehearsals, both actors are stronger and a little bit bruised,” Heim says. “We don’t want this show to be gymnastic or acrobatic. The movement is abstract.”

He notes that Madden wanted a play with the feel of Los Angeles youth culture, so the score, written by Paul James Prendergast, is fast-paced and hip, and the skating ramp structure is used to represent different images and metaphors.

“It’s not used as a skateboard ramp but is used to portray an escape route, jail, court and abstract images of how the characters feel,” Heim explains. “They don’t know where to go, so they run up the ramp and slide down. In that state of survival, emotionally and physically, the characters on stage -- and, in reality, the actors who are playing them -- are learning about themselves.”

Madden, who admired Heim’s work with Diavolo, auditioned 62 actors for the cast and wanted two men who had both acting skills and physical flexibility.

“I wanted to do a very physical performance because of my own attraction to the physical work,” says Madden, who explains that the original Australian production of the play used simple props like ladders, stones and sawhorses.

“This play looks at the condition of being a young person in contemporary urban situations and what it means to have a great deal of time, energy and curiosity that can be destructive if it’s not channeled well.”

Because of the strenuous nature of the piece, the actors are scheduled to receive weekly massage therapy sessions.

“We want to be caring and safe with them because we’re experimenting with so many things,” Heim says. “This is an exciting and challenging piece for me because I’m constantly working out in my mind what to do next. I am a person who likes to face the unknown.”

‘The Stones’

Where: Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City

When: Opens 5 p.m. Saturday. Runs 7 p.m. Fridays,

2 and 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Ends: April 9

Price: $20 to $40

Contact: (213) 628-2772