If these ‘Walls’ could talk ...

Strutting before his students with his hand cocked on his hip, Morocco Hemphill offers a vivid lesson in the meaning of “character.” His method: impersonating his no-nonsense grandmother trying to rustle him up for church when he was a boy. As a performance, it’s as hammy as it is heartfelt, but it does the trick of revealing to young minds the theatrical punch of personality.

It’s no accident that Morocco, a middle-aged former chorus boy whose career never took off, is the most sought-after high school drama teacher in Manhattan. As flamboyantly played by Laurence Fishburne, he could probably upstage Liza Minnelli if she were foolish enough to challenge him in his classroom.

Hold on. Morpheus from “The Matrix” as a fluttering acting guru? Ike Turner as a florid thespian? Admittedly, most of the fun of Alfred Uhry’s flat new drama, “Without Walls,” which opened Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum, comes from watching Fishburne gamely play against type.

There’s something undeniably delightful about the way he’s placed his machismo under a doily. Disappointingly though, the production doesn’t fully exploit the giddy adventurousness of its star.

The problem is that the play doesn’t care to know what’s behind its protagonist’s histrionic fireworks. We’re lathered in Morocco’s creamy stage voice and diverted by his tinkling gestures, but seldom do we get a penetrating glimpse into the origins and longings of his over-the-top theatricality.

As with his earlier play “Driving Miss Daisy,” Uhry focuses on the fraught intimacy between black and white characters. “Without Walls” revolves around Morocco’s close attachment to two students at the progressive school in which he has a cult following as head of the drama department.

But though an incendiary remark is made early on about how “wild” it is that a black man is teaching all these rich white kids, race ultimately isn’t the play’s concern. (It can’t be since Morocco remains a shadowy unknown.) Class and money are more the point, but the real issue (brace yourself, everyone) is the effect of the “open classroom” philosophy on a bunch of obnoxious brats.

The year is 1976, a time when educators were questioning the strict hierarchies of the traditional learning environment. The Dewey School, a middle-rung private institution looking to carve out a more attractive niche in a competitive market, has taken permissiveness to a trendy extreme. Students drop by their teachers’ apartments for meals, and everyone’s on a kissy-kissy first-name basis.

Anton McCormick (Matt Lanter) is a senior who’s just transferred to Dewey after flunking out of boarding school. A troublemaker who is as spoiled as he is neglected, he’s accustomed to using his seductive good looks to get what he wants from adults and peers alike. He’s starving for love, but, not understanding what’s driving him, he aims to control. His tactic is to make people feel sorry for him while alternately reminding them of his fabulous wealth and privilege.

Lexy Sheppard (Amanda MacDonald), a favorite of Morocco’s, catches Anton’s interest, and it’s not long before he wheedles his way into her heart. He’s helped unwittingly by Morocco, who wants Lexy to act in the school production of (big elbow nudge here) “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Lexy’s lawyer father wants her to devote herself to the SAT this semester, but her drama teacher knows that she won’t be able to turn down a part in the play if it involves a romantic scene with Anton, whose masterful yo-yoing of her emotions has her hooked.

Uhry assembles convincing psychological profiles, which isn’t the same thing as creating convincing characters. A diva among his adoring teenage fans, Morocco is almost always in teacher mode. He’s obviously lonely, with little life beyond his job. But the portrait seems incomplete, as though the playwright has no knowledge of the character beyond his professional face.

Only once do we experience Morocco as a private person, dancing around his apartment while smoking a joint. We find out that he likes going to the ballet and that he makes a mean chili, but whether he’s gay, straight, bi or asexual (a question that’s not incidental to what eventually transpires) remains a mystery -- though unfortunately not one that grows in fascination.

Anton and Lexy are like catalogs of annoying adolescent behavior. We get to see them manipulating each other on the phone for long stretches. The effect of this only underscores the basic principle that not every aspect of life is worthy of representation, particularly when little insight is offered to alleviate the tedium.

Uhry has chosen to write about characters who lack the capacity for genuine self-reflection. For this to work, the play as a whole needs to grapple with the maladjusted mind-sets it has thrown together. But the playwright seems like a stranger in the world he’s jerry-built, and so instead of illumination he gives us plot.

And what a plot it is -- a series of red herrings, essentially. Suffice it to say that the lack of boundaries between students and teacher leads to an accusation of misconduct that’s as potentially damaging as the one found in Lillian Hellman’s “The Children’s Hour” -- only without the same deft dramatic build. Though the action unfolds in a brief 80 minutes, it’s languidly parceled out. As a result, we’re left shrugging at the end rather than feeling shocked.

Christopher Ashley’s production is content to skate on the surface. The world of the play only occasionally comes into focus. Thomas Lynch and Charlie Corcoran’s set, which is meant to move fluidly between the school and Morocco’s apartment, seems stranded in an indistinct limbo.

Lanter and MacDonald outline their roles effectively but aren’t able to marshal detail into interpretation. Anton and Lexy are ciphers, meticulously wrought.

Fishburne has an impressive theatrical command, injecting humor when possible and dominating the stage as his character is supposed to. He hints at a hidden complexity in Morocco, but the play doesn’t give him enough to work with. The same was true for the very different teacher he played in his recent film “Akeelah and the Bee.” There he had a tragic back story, but even then he was one-dimensional, the solemn African American PhD coaching his South-Central spelling whiz into a champion.

The swish in Fishburne’s walk extends his seemingly boundless reach. But “Without Walls” doesn’t engage enough of his rough-and-tumble humanity.

*

‘Without Walls’

Where: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays

Ends: July 16

Price: $42 to $55

Contact: (213) 628-2772

Running Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Laurence Fishburne...Morocco Hemphill

Matt Lanter...Anton McCormick

Amanda MacDonald...Lexy Sheppard

By Alfred Uhry. Directed by Christopher Ashley. Sets by Thomas Lynch and Charlie Corcoran. Costumes by David C. Woolard. Lighting by Donald Holder. Sound and additional music by Mark Bennett. Production stage manager Alex Lyu Volckhausen.