‘Uncle Bob’ Explores Destructive Ties

Austin Pendleton’s “Uncle Bob” at the Asylum Theater humanizes the stereotype of the creepy relative who has incestuous yearnings, and director Adriana Barlow gives us two provocative versions of this depiction of a ruinous relationship between an angry young man, Josh (Jason Field), and his terminally ill uncle (George Morfogen, alternating with Pendleton).

Uncle Bob has lusted after Josh since his nephew was 8 years old; Josh realized the strange sway he possessed over the older man when he was 9. Yet Uncle Bob has never acted on this sexual attraction or acknowledged it to Josh until Josh arrives at Bob’s dingy apartment and Bob is sinking into AIDS-related dementia.

Pendleton wrote this role specifically for Morfogen, and Morfogen is clearly more at ease in it than is the author. Morfogen’s Uncle Bob is an angry, bitter man, cut by his keen awareness of his failures in life. Pendleton’s version is sadder--a small, pathetic, ineffectual man. Physically, Pendleton is slighter in build than Morfogen and the muscular, explosive Field, who adjusts well to both sparring partners. This physical disparity between Field and Pendleton and Pendleton’s phrasing inject a dry humor that’s absent in Morfogen’s interpretation--where physical threat and violence are ever present.

Ultimately, Barlow provides an uncompromisingly bleak interpretation of destructive love.

* “Uncle Bob,” Asylum Theatre at the Improv, 8156 Melrose Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 20. $12. (213) 651-2583, Ext. 176. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.