STAGE REVIEWS : Time Doesn’t Cloud View From ‘Blue Window’ : The South Orange County Community Theatre production proves that Craig Lucas’ play works as well in the ‘90s as it did in the ‘80s.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — Knock the ‘80s if you must, but at least they gave us “Blue Window.” When Craig Lucas’ play about lives intersecting and diverging on a Sunday evening appeared at South Coast Repertory almost eight years ago (is it possible?), it clearly was a work blessed with the perfect balance of elegance and modesty, of self-knowing sophistication and self-mockery, of lives lived all too cerebrally and physically.

So, of course, it is horribly difficult to do well, as painfully proven by the subsequent American Playhouse version directed by Norman Rene. Now, with time’s passage, as the kind of yuppies Lucas depicted have drifted from cultural cliches into dinosaurs, “Blue Window” might seem unrevivable.

It’s nice to be reminded that a good play is a good play anytime, and director Jill Forbath’s staging for the South Orange County Community Theatre reminds us with surprising vigor--surprising, since Forbath’s evening actually begins with a useless piece of fluffy nonsense, John Glore’s brief playlet “Imagine Music.”

Glore, SCR’s literary manager, delivers such a trite exercise on the theme of artistic regeneration, and Forbath’s cast is so unmusical, that expectations for any “Blue Window” turn grim more quickly than bad instant coffee.

Lucas’ work also is partly about art (what other play actually devotes time to discussion of the free jazz of Cecil Taylor?). It is also about recovery, and on neither subject does it telegraph itself.

Libby (a quietly sad Alice Ensor) is throwing the party that brings everyone together, and it is only at the searing denouement, via one of contemporary playwriting’s most imagistic monologues, that Lucas lets us in on Libby’s real purpose.

She doesn’t really know anyone who shows up, except Griever (an instantly engaging Michael Thorstensen). The others don’t really know each other either.

Norbert is a single, near-silent sky-diver (David Kelso almost makes taciturnity interesting) who watches the two other couples: Author Alice (a smart Dawna Finley) chatting, chatting, chatting with mate-therapist Boo (a crackling Kerene Barnard), and musician Tom (Duane Post, pouring on the disgust too heavily) with his intimidated girlfriend Emily (Nina Martin, wonderfully uncomfortable).

It’s typical of “Blue Window” that, just when it appears that Emily will remain a wallflower as she would in most plays, she comes downstage and sings a ballad that evokes the sense of a whole generation lost in the big city (Martin puts across William Bolcom’s tender song as if she’s been there). Like a collage-maker balancing each of his elements and every corner of his canvas, Lucas gives everyone moments to inhale and exhale and pause to consider what he or she is doing with his or her life.

The play that allows for such moments of genuine contemplation is rare, and time has only made “Blue Window” that much more valuable (especially in light of some of Lucas’ subsequent, more disappointing works such as “Prelude to a Kiss”).

There’s enough comedy here to chisel some funny words--such as Alice’s bimbotic --permanently into the vocabulary, but there’s also enough open, unsentimental, adult sadness to belie the idea of “the go-go ‘80s.” Forbath’s fairly handsome and sensitive production makes one wonder how Lucas’ people will end up in the ‘90s. A frightening thought, perhaps, depending on how blue the window you’re looking through really is.

‘Blue Window’

A South Orange County Community Theatre production of Craig Lucas’ play, on a program with “Imagine Music” by John Glore. Directed by Jill Forbath. With Nina Martin, Duane Post, Alice Ensor, David Kelso, Kerene Barnard, Michael Thorstensen, Dawna Finley. Set design: Steve Forbath. Lighting and sound design: Art Edgrin. Continues Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. through Feb. 13, with a Sunday matinee Feb. 7 at 2, at the Camino Real Playhouse, 31776 El Camino Real, San Juan Capistrano. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes. $10. (714) 489-8082.