ByMEL GUSSOW
JEFFWEISS is a triple threat as playwright, actor and director - a man with anunbridled field of energy. Bottle him and he could give Con Edison a run foryour money. He is the driving force behind ''. . . And That's How the Rent GetsPaid - Part IV (or, The Confessions of Conrad Gehrhardt),'' an apparentlyendless series of episodes in the life of an actor manque who may also be amaniac.
Onstage, Mr. Weiss has surrounded himself with ''guest stars,'' many of whom aremembers of the Wooster Group, and whose number varies with every performance,as does the play itself. The author is the self-center of attention, and theshow is his selection (seems like all) of the several hundred scenes he hascreated about his putative hero.
Asthe play entered its fourth hour in the un-air-conditioned Performing Garage,one had long ago accepted discomfort as a way of Weiss life. Though the eveninghas its excesses, it also has a visceral investiture of theatrical imagination.
Inoutline, the work is a stage equivalent of a film noir paralleling the lives ofthe title character and his nemesis, Persky (Ron Vawter), a police detectivefrom Queens with an abundance of skeletons in his own various closets. One manpursues the other, and either one - or a doppelganger of each - may be theunknown culprit. The mystery zigzags across a map of America and ends,unsolved, in Mexico in ''Hart Crane memorial'' country.
Theplay does not so much wind down as fluctuate while never descending todoldrums. Approaching a slough, Mr. Weiss perks things up with a song and dance- ''Where or When,'' ''Talk of the Town'' or one of his own odd originalswritten in collaboration with Nicky Paraiso, who provides tuneful accompanimenton the piano. In common with most of the company, the appealing Mr. Paraisoplays a multiplicity of roles, from Mr. Piano-man to a bisexual policeman on amidnight stakeout.
Severalfactors elevate the evening above the private confessional. First of all, thereis Mr. Weiss's writing. Though, as a playwright, he is, to say the least,undisciplined, he can also turn a droll phrase, and he is not without humorousabashment. His persona on stage is not, as one might expect, that of ashow-off, but of a man who is genuinely confused about his identity - in life,in the theater and as an object manhandled by designing men and women. Alongwith camp elements, the play has a kind of sincerity, as it deals with, in theauthor's words, ''disorder and early sorrow.''
Thestaging is restless, with actors running spotlights from the audience and withMr. Weiss acting as narrator and traffic manager. He leads the others overtables and across wrestling mats, artfully presenting several scenes behind asheet as shadow play and pausing at dramatic and comic moments to call''Blackout.''
Ashe has previously demonstrated, Mr. Vawter has the ability to incarnate comicmalice, and here he is a most suspicious gumshoe. The evening's surprisesinclude actresses (Kate Valk, Nancy Reilly and Dorothy Cantwell, among others)whose talent for playing characters has been, up to now, a closely guardedsecret. They leap in and out of roles as battered wives, a professionalwrestler who is also a published poet, a woman who has cosmetic surgery fromher ''sub-basement'' to her ''roof garden'' and a ''terminal nurse.''
Togetherthey reveal a collaborative vitality that rivals that of their star. At thefinal curtain, after Mr. Weiss compliments his cast, they praise him as ''thehardest working man in show business,'' a claim that one is not about todispute.
Lives and Lives. . . AND THAT'S HOW THE RENT GETS PAID, PART IV (OR, THE CONFESSIONS OF CONRADGEHRHARDT), by Jeff Weiss. Presented by the Wooster Group Inc. At thePerforming Garage, 33 Wooster Street. WITH: Jeff Weiss, Dorothy Cantwell, JesseAllen, John Bernd, Willem Dafoe, Jonathan Freeman, Keith McDermot, NickyParaiso, Nancy Reilly, Perrell Robinson, Mary Schultz, Kate Valk, Ron Vawter,John B. Walker and Sturgess Warner.
©TheNew York Times