America’s reality-obsessed performers would do well to heed the fascinating acting lesson currently onstage in the small theater at La MaMa.Two Italian actresses, each representing a wildly different training method, strut their stuff in material that seems designed solely to showcase their strengths. The overall production of “L’Ultima Notte di Salome” (or “The Last Night of Salome”) doesn’t quite manage to snare the audience, much less transport them. But seen simply as a demonstration of two astonishingly capable theater artists, “Salome” marries those two rare companions: enjoyment and instruction.

On a rainy 1950s night in a Roman bar, Desi (Lydia Biondi) is closing up. Her unconscious husband, Buffalo Bill (Avner Kam), slumps in a corner, snoring and offering no help at all. Desi looks 10 years older than her age, shuffling about in slippers, slapping her rag on the dirty tables, listening to the radio to help pass the time. But then, just as we learn (from a hilariously transparent news-broadcast) that the famous Veronica Lopez has given her farewell performance as Salome, a figure appears in the doorway.

Naturally, it is Veronica. Sweeping in out of the rain, as is appropriate for a femme fatale,Veronica (Carla Cassola) has braved the elements in a fulllength evening gown and a series of spectacular hats. She instantly sweeps Desi up into the tale of her hellish evening, confessing bits of theater gossip and throwing back whiskey with jaded abandon. While Desi tries to keep up with her own tales of woe (an impotent husband, ruined hopes), Veronica trumps them all with an escalating series of horrors.

Veronica can’t seem to consume enough to keep up with her appetites – she straddles Desi’s still-snoozing husband and hoovers up lines of cocaine. Desi, getting high for the first time, delivers a pert monologue on man’s ability to play many roles, and for a while the women seem to have a good deal in common. But before long, Veronica’s ongoing obsession with playing Salome takes a nasty turn, finally driving one of the women back out into the rain.

Playwright Emanuele Vacchetto must have written the piece with these performers in mind. The contrast between them – one a diva, the other a clown – practically demands it. In fact, the play is their contrasts: they may be the same age, but they could be from different species. Veronica seems Amazonian (perhaps because of her terrifyingly high heels), and she crosses the stage in a few man-eating strides. When little Desi potters about, fussing, she moves more like a leaky balloon.

Director Maria Luisa Bigai makes the most of the humor in the piece – quite unusual for a duet for wrecked women. The 1950s setting makes for a lovely series of musical jokes (“Mambo Italiano,” played fast, is always funny), and both actresses have a polished comic timing.They play in Italian with supertitles racing to catch up (not always successfully), but their physical discipline often renders translation unnecessary. Ms. Biondi’s credits lie in mime and commedia; Ms. Cassola trained with Grotowski. On the surface, their disciplines couldn’t be more different. But seen here together, they reveal how spectacular levels of control can let the aesthetics mesh.

With the dominance of Stanislavski and the rise of film acting, American actor training today seems awfully close to killing off everything other than a literal-minded naturalism. Young actors exposed to Ms. Biondi and Ms. Cassola would see how stylization can be a better path to “truth” onstage. In this city of high-priced acting classes, it’s an awfully cheap lesson for under 20 bucks.

Until March 19 (74A E. 4th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, 212-475-7710).