Lucca Züchner and Helen Schneider Photo by Maria Baranova

His colleague counters by insisting, "Tt takes an artist of the highest caliber, borne through years and years of training, to even begin to approach Beethoven, Bruckner... Brahms! Every time I see something different. There are millions of variations and permutations and I see different ones always, no two alike! There lies the genius! There lies the magic!"

The words are the author's invention, suggested by an actual event. In 1988, while the two iconic artists were both very close to the end of their lives, they happened to cross paths in the Blaue Bar of Vienna's Hotel Sacher.

Under normal circumstances you might see such debating as part of a friendly rivalry between two enormously successful artists who have nothing to prove. But there's more to it than that.

In 1943, young Bernstein became an overnight sensation filling in for the ailing Bruno Walter at the last minute in a national radio broadcast concert at Carnegie Hall. Throughout his career he used his status as one of the world's most famous Jewish celebrities to combat antisemitism though art. Ten years earlier, as a member of the Nazi Party, von Karajan began a 34-year reign as principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. In 1955, Bernstein helped arrange a Berlin Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall, where Von Karajan was loudly booed by the audience.

Danish has the Austrian defending his membership as the decision of a naïve youth trying to advance in his career. "I was a mere boy! Of course I didn't see the consequences at the time."

Likewise, the playwright has the American claiming no previous knowledge of any plans to protest his colleague's appearance.

This issue is introduced early and touched upon once again at the play's conclusion, but for the most part, Last Call bounces from topic to topic, primarily to point out the differences in their artistic career choices.

Having achieved fame during the era when long-playing records first allowed major works to be easily enjoyed by the general public, Bernstein, who took advantage of the technology to popularize his own works, questions von Karajan's habit of recording the same pieces multiple times.

The Austrian explains, "When I listen to some of my old recordings, I envy the painters who can simply burn their old pictures that they don't like."

Von Karajan has little regard for Bernstein's choice to compose Broadway musicals ("Germans may have invented the word kitsch, but America has taken it to a whole new level.") and accuses him of using his talents as a classical conductor as a commodity for promoting his original works. ("Did you not agree to conduct Wagner in Vienna in exchange for them putting on your opera Trouble in Tahiti?")

Before Thursday night's preview performance, director Gil Mehmert explained that he decided to cast women as the two conductors in order to avoid having audience members fixated on whether or not the actors truly resembled the men they were portraying, although the uncredited wig designer certainly gets specific. Costume designer Renè Neumann gives both characters their signature turtlenecks.

As Bernstein, Helen Schneider projects a droll and laid-back air of superiority as opposed to Lucca Züchner's frenetically animated von Karajan. Both were very good in what was only their second preview performance and one would imagine there'll be much growth as the run progresses, but the play itself doesn't offer them the opportunity to go especially deep. Internal monologues, heard through Lindsay Jones' sound design while each character takes a bathroom break (Chris Barreca's cocktail lounge set opens up to reveal a restroom), don't add enough insight.

Victor Petersen plays the waiter/bartender, a mostly functional character, but he also provides the theatrical highlight of the 90-minute play in a sequence where his dramatic countertenor voice is put to good use.

Last Call certainly offers some entertaining banter, but in a year where American performing artists have abruptly been faced with the issue of considering the political ramifications of performing at a certain prestigious venue, and government arts funding suddenly requires an avoidance of certain topics, the more intense conversations might be found in post-theatre discussions.