“A Life in the Theater” could be reduced to simple stage directions: John moves center stage and Robert exits stage left.

David Mamet’s 1975 play about the ascent of a young actor and the eclipse of his older mentor frames the universal theme of generational torch-passing with the backstage/onstage business of theater.

Island Theater puts on the production this weekend – something director Kenneth Enright says he has wanted to do since he was introduced to it in 1986.

“Mostly I’m an actor,” Enright said, “but I think it (directing) works with this one because it’s about theater – something I know well.”

The upcoming production benefits by being cast with Enright and Tell Schreiber, local actors whose lives have, in fact, been in theater.

After Enright completed an undergraduate degree in theater at University of California at Santa Cruz, he toured with the National Shakespeare Company based in New York City, playing in “Romeo and Juliet” and “Taming of the Shrew.”

Then a friend Enright had worked with in dinner theater in San Diego convinced him to move to Chula Vista.

Enright set up outdoor summer theater in the southern California town in 1986, playing the title roles in “Hamlet” and “Macbeth.”

When Enright and his wife, theater director Bonnie Showers, moved to Bainbridge several years ago, the pair naturally found their way to Island Theater.

“Cate (Carruthers) was hoping Bonnie wanted to direct a production,” Enright said. “Bonnie was too busy, but I said, ‘Gosh, I’d really like to do “A Life in the Theater.”’ I’d had it in mind for a while.”

Enright cast himself as the young thespian and knew he wanted Tell Schreiber to play Robert, the older actor.

The pair had been onstage together recently as Heisenberg and Bohr in last month’s Island Theater reading of “Copenhagen” by Michael Frayn.

Schreiber, whose film credits include “The Driver” with Christopher Lee, majored in theater at Dartmouth, subsequently earning a master’s degree in theater from York University in Ontario. Schreiber played in summer stock and taught college-level acting in Canada for six years. .

“I was thrilled. I got my first choice of who I wanted to work with,” Enright said. “To find someone that has that kind of understanding and commitment is rare.

“(Tell Schreiber) is really well-trained and a very sensitive artist. It’s a gift when you get to work with someone like this; your chances of having a transcendent experience increase.”

Rising star

The play opens with Schreiber’s character, Robert, lecturing his acolyte, John, who hangs on his words:

“You have a job to do. You do it by your lights, you bring your expertise to bear, your sense of rightness…fellow feelings…etiquette…professional procedure…these are tools one brings to bear.”

But the balance of power shifts as John comes into his own, and Robert is nudged from the spotlight.

Throughout “A Life in the Theater,” Schreiber and Enright, as the two actors, slip onstage and off while the conversation between the two is carried forward both by backstage banter and by snippets of scenes, plays within the larger play.

In 26 scene shifts, the audience is taken on a whirlwind tour of the genres, as Robert and John become doughboys in the trenches, French aristocrats, doctors in surgery and more.

The bittersweet valentine to theatrical life that is “A Life in the Theater” also condenses the mishaps of the trade – the wig that falls off onstage, the lines missed, the entrances fluffed.

Mamet’s stage directions call for a second curtain and for the actors to turn away from the audience to speak play-within-a-play lines to an imagined audience in the wings.

Productions have bogged down trying to pull off the rapid scene shifts. To avoid that, Island Theater chose a simple platform facing the actual audience.

“You ask yourself why they went to that length when it’s the relationships that are the crucial element, anyway,” Enright said. “I think we’re blessed, in a way, that we’re not mounting a full production. We’re sparing ourselves that grief.”

While “A Life in the Theater” may lack the profane grittiness of the body of Mamet’s ouevre – for which Mamet has been awarded the Obie, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Pulitzer, an Academy Award and a Tony Award, among others – Enright points to the passion underlying the dialogue.

“For me, theater is a concentrated form of explaining life at its fullest and sharing it with an audience,” Enright said. “This play encapsulates that and picks up high points and low points. It shows the humanity of the people involved at a deep and passionate level.

“These folks are trying to do their craft, trying to get at something greater, and if they do it right something greater will flow through them.”

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Island Theater presents a directed reading of the play “A Life in the Theater” by David Mamet at 7:30 p.m. April 19th at Bainbridge Public Library.

Tell Schreiber and Kenneth Enright star and Enright doubles as director. The reading is free and open to the public. Call 842-4162 for more information.