Currently Playing November 20, 2008

By the Waters of Babylon. In Robert Schenkkan’s two-hander, a troubled Austin widow (Shannon Cochran) hires an expatriate Cuban writer (Demian Bichir) to spruce up her garden – and, he later learns, her bed and her heart. He has his own tormented past, but – no surprise – they find a connection, which ends in a visualization of being cleansed. Forget the vigor and sweep of Schenkkan’s The Kentucky Cycle. This wispy duet is staged well enough by Richard Seyd. Geffen Playhouse, Westwood. (310) 208-5454. GeffenPlayhouse.com. Closes Dec. 7.

For All Time. Cornerstone Theater’s three-year cycle of plays about justice continues with KJ Sanchez’s compilation of material from interviews with prisoners, victims’ families, parole officers and others, staged by Laurie Woolery, and dotted with unnecessary excerpts from ancient Greek tragedies about justice. Sanchez is interested in even-handed questions almost to a fault; the play feels a bit shapeless. Amy C. Maier’s set, in a gallery configuration, is visually striking but audience-unfriendly – maybe we’re supposed to get a tiny taste of the restrictions prisoners feel. Shakespeare Festival/LA, Beverly Blvd. west of the 110. (213) 613-1700. CornerstoneTheater.org. Closes Nov. 23.

Gem of the Ocean. August Wilson’s 2003 play is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1904, in the home of the legendary Methuselah-like sage Aunt Ester (Juanita Jennings), who is also mentioned in Two Trains Running (see review, below). Assisted by her young housekeeper (Tene Carter Miller) and handyman (Jeris Lee Poindexter), Ester washes the souls of people who seek her out, including a young sojourner (Keith Arthur Bolden) who fears he might have been responsible for another man’s death. But the plot arbitrarily pivots in the direction of an ex-slave (the magnetic Adolphus Ward), who is determined to rescue his sister from the Jim Crow South, but not before infuriating the local black political boss (Rodney Gardiner). The script is a mixed bag, with supernatural elements side by side with down-to-earth comedy. Director Ben Bradley successfully overcomes small-theater design limitations. Fountain Theatre, southeast Hollywood. (323) 663-1525. FountainTheatre.com. Dark Dec. 22-Jan. 8. Closes Feb. 22.

Hamlet. Young Hamlet (Freddy Douglas) has started cutting himself since the death of his father. When he investigates reports of his father’s ghost’s appearance, he sees only images of…himself – Douglas also plays the Ghost, throwing his voice in a kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde routine. In other words, this prince’s feigned craziness might not be entirely feigned. Still, in Michael Michetti’s eerily effective staging, there’s no questioning of the basic facts. Gertrude (Deborah Strang) appears even more convinced of her new husband’s guilt than usual. Maybe it’s the way this Claudius (Francois Giroday) combines an eccentrically flamboyant look with such explosive tantrums. Anyway, when Gertrude takes her fatal drink, it’s as if she’ll do anything to prevent her son from falling into her husband’s traps. Plenty of interesting ideas percolate in Michetti’s somewhat stripped-down staging (only 10 actors, no Fortinbras), and the cast is terrific, including ANW newcomer but longtime local favorite Tony Abatemarco as the busybody Polonius. Contemporary touches in the visual and sound design add a sleek, modern patina. I was annoyed only by a decision to bring Dorothea Harahan back as an extra, more or less, after her Ophelia has drowned. Or maybe she’s actually supposed to be her own ghost? But she says nothing. The final torment on Ophelia’s face is too indelible for us to pretend later that we can’t spot her there in the back row and wonder why Michetti brought her back. A Noise Within, Glendale. (818) 240-0910. ANoiseWithin.org. Closes Dec. 7.

How Cissy Grew. Playwright Susan Johnston displays fragments of the childhood and youth of a West Virginia girl (Liz Vital) who was, as a baby, kidnapped for a week by a stranger who was later convicted and imprisoned for life. We don’t know what happened during that week, so we’re left to guess to what extent the young woman’s cynical personality stems from the kidnapping, from the chronic bickering of the child’s careless and addictive parents (Erin J. O’Brien, James Denton) or from whatever. The performances, under Casey Stangl’s direction, are lively, but the action pauses for scene changes every minute or two. The non-chronological sequence of vignettes feels awfully arbitrary. El Portal Forum Theatre, North Hollywood. (818) 508-4200. ElPortalTheatre.com. Closes Nov. 23.

Joe’s Garage. This Pat Towne/Michael Franco adaptation of Frank Zappa’s album (1979), musically directed by Ross Wright, provides a few lively moments of rock spectacle but not much of a coherent story or a prescient satirical parable. Even after Bush/Cheney, Zappa’s scenario about music being banned feels remote – in many ways, music is more accessible than ever. Zappa’s shaggy-dog story depicts Joe (vigorous Jason Paige) constantly watched by a Central Scrutinizer (a cutely cheesy puppet), but the tale itself can’t withstand the scrutiny it receives in this format. It’s no surprise that a plaintive cut from the original album, played in darkness with no actors on stage, is the most effective moment. Open Fist Theatre, Hollywood. (323) 882-6912. openfist.org. Closes Dec. 20.

The Joy Luck Club. Susan Kim’s cumbersome dramatization of Amy Tan’s novel about four Chinese American mother-daughter relationships, with scenes spread over decades in both the old and the new countries, is a difficult challenge for director Jon Lawrence Rivera. Although there are some good moments, the overall impression is that the material is too sprawling, episodic and diffuse for a 130-minute script. Nathan Wang’s incidental musical score, performed live, tries to help unite the various pieces but instead serves mainly to underline the studied somberness. With 11 actors playing from two to four roles apiece, it all becomes something of a blur. East West Players at David Henry Hwang Theater, Little Tokyo. (213) 625-7000. eastwestplayers.org. Closes Dec. 21.

Lions. The lower-middle-class regulars at a Detroit bar meet to monitor the success of their mostly beloved gridiron team (hence the title), but they gradually disintegrate in their private lives, thanks to a dead-end economy and a variety of personal shortcomings. The focal point is the unemployed John “Spook” Waite (Matt McKenzie), who’s bedeviled by Loman-like thoughts of the roads not taken. In one explosive scene, his wife (Valerie Dillman) invades his lair and confronts him. Most of the characterizations are well-observed, under the direction of Guillermo Cienfuegos. But like many barroom plays, Vince Melocchi’s needs a vigorous trim, which could make way for clarification about how Waite finally obtains a job and how it plays out. Pacific Resident Theatre, Venice. (310) 822-8392. PacificResidentTheatre.com. Closes Dec. 7.

Louie & Keely Live at the Sahara: This extraordinary bio-musical, about the postwar lounge duo that consisted of the jittery dervish Louis Prima (Jake Broder) and his deadpan-wielding wife Keely Smith (Vanessa Claire Smith), is now in a slightly larger venue than the Sacred Fools Theatre where it originated. Maybe because of the position of my seat in each of the venues, I felt as if I couldn’t see the stage-left blocking as well as I could the first time. Still, that’s a minor matter, compared to the jazzy jolt of adrenalin that rules this show. The two primary actors wrote the show for themselves, but it gallops past the limitations of most showcases and star bios to become an exquisite evocation of the joys and the sorrows of a performance-obsessed life, staged by Jeremy Aldridge. The stars and Dennis Kaye’s onstage, seven-man band bring breathless revelations to 16 oft-heard standards. Matrix Theatre, Melrose district. (800) 838-3006. louiskeelyshow.com. Closes Dec. 21.

Love’s Old Sweet Song. William Saroyan’s loose-limbed 1940 oddity examines the bogus romance between an unmarried Bakersfield woman (McKerrin Kelly) and a sleazy salesman (Steve Marvel), plus the enormous family of Okies who invade her house, and several other picturesque characters. Much of it feels like satire of long-dead targets. Still, Martin Bedoian’s staging for Syzygy Theatre returns the play to about as much life as it will ever get. GTC Burbank, (323) 254-9328, (800) 838-3006. syzygytheatre.org. Closes Nov. 22.

Lovelace: A Rock Opera. Linda (Katrina Lenk) of Deep Throat fame is a quivering victim, primarily of her vile husband (Jimmy Swan) but also of her enabling mother (Whitney Allen). Then she abruptly rebels and becomes a feminist martyr, acquiring an unseen husband, as well as a child who remembers her fondly enough to narrate intermittently. There’s no unspoken dialogue, but the program lists 40 songs by Anna Waronker of That Dog and Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go’s’s. Though some of the music is worthy and sung well, the effort to cram so much of it into 90 minutes reduces the story into something that’s shallow and schematic, as in a similarly structured rock opera about Evel Knievel a year ago. Hayworth Theatre, near MacArthur Park. (323) 960-4442. plays411.com. closes Nov. 23.

Mary’s Wedding. Playwright Stephen Massicotte explores a World War I-era romance from the perspective of a 1920 dream by a nightgown-clad Canadian woman (Ashley Bell) on the eve of her wedding. Her dream reaches back to her first meeting with her lover (Brett Ryback) and incorporates scenes of him as a member of a cavalry unit in Europe. In her dream, she plays the role of his genial commanding officer – without even bothering to slip into something less comfortable. The bittersweet script is rich in lyrical language but also in predictable narrative twists, and it’s not quite the antiwar statement that Massicotte apparently intended. David Rose’s staging, on a semi-abstract set with a large revolving horse sculpture at its heart, serves the play beautifully. Colony Theatre, Burbank. (818) 558-7000. colonytheatre.org. Closes Nov. 23.

Quixotic. A lowly clerk (Isaac Wade) in a branch office of an down-in-the-dumps insurance company, where layoffs are expected any day, goes bonkers and assume the role of Don Quixote, determined to right the world’s wrongs on behalf of his lady fair (Coco Kleppinger), the office manager who’s on the verge of firing him. It might sound far-fetched, but Kit Steinkellner’s play is an imaginative and congenial way to stir up the higher-minded sentiments that might help Americans survive our current economic crisis. Staged by Amanda Glaze, the comedy is yet another eye-opener from Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble, one of L.A.’s most compelling young troupes. Powerhouse Theatre, Ocean Park, Santa Monica. (310) 396-3680. latensemble.com. Closes Nov. 22.

The Rainmaker. N. Richard Nash’s 1954 drama focuses on a young Western woman (Bridget Flanery), beleaguered by the excessive fretting of her father (Mitchell Edmonds) and brothers about her lack of a beau. A charismatic con man (Bo Foxworth) improves her self-image with some romantic hokum. It isn’t very convincing, though the fault is Nash’s, not director Andrew J. Traister’s. A Noise Within, Glendale. (818) 240-0910. anoisewithin.org. Closes Dec. 6.

Salvage. After a Montana Blackfeet couple (Noah Watts, Elena Finney) becomes entangled with another (unseen) Blackfeet family in a fatal traffic accident, life takes a severe tumble. Diane Glancy’s glum play, directed by Sheila Tousey for Native Voices, is broken into so many little scenes that it plays like a would-be screenplay. The momentum is interrupted by many minor scene changes within the family’s auto salvage business and home. The only other onstage character is the man’s father (Robert Graygrass-Owens). Autry Center, Griffith Park. (866) 468-3399. ticketweb.com. Closes Nov. 23.

The School of Night. Christopher Marlowe (Gregory Wooddell) is the primary focus of an otherwise unfocused 1992 drama by British playwright Peter Whelan, set 400 years earlier, amid Elizabethan intrigues. Whelan offers a provocative take on the young Shakespeare (John Sloan), but more often the play remains mired in a talky bog that won’t interest non-academic audiences. Bill Alexander directs. This makes two largely irrelevant play choices out of two at the re-opened Taper. Mark Taper Forum, Music Center, downtown L.A. (213) 628-2772. CenterTheatreGroup.org. Closes Dec. 17.

The Sequence. From 1993 to 2001, the NIH scientist Francis Collins (Hugo Armstrong) and his private-sector counterpart Craig Venter (William Salyers) compete to map the human genome, until they’re forced to work together by President Clinton. Playwright Paul Mullin has a history of dramatizing scientists (The Louis Slotin Sonata) and skips lightly through the science with ample visual aids in John Langs’ staging. But the glamorous, fictitious reporter (Karri Krause), who sometimes loses her objectivity, feels like a transparent device designed to sex up material that might otherwise be deemed too abstruse. She’s also an audience surrogate for the uncomprehending. Theatre@Boston Court, Pasadena. (626) 683-6883. bostoncourt.org. Closes Nov. 23.

Silk Stockings. Stuart Ross (Forever Plaid) has renovated Cole Porter’s 1955 musical, which was based on the movie Ninotchka, for Musical Theatre West. The romantic couples are an American movie producer (John Scherer) and a frosty Soviet bureaucrat, (Julie Ann Emery), and a Russian composer (Andy Taylor) and an American movie star (Darcie Roberts), during the shooting of a U.S.-Soviet musical in Paris. The revised time is 1960. The frivolities, plot contrivances and dated satire are enhanced by the Porter gems “All of You” and “What Is This Thing Called Love?,” an oblique Sarah Palin joke, and sturdy shtick by a trio of Russians (Stuart Pankin, Nick DeGruccio, Paul Kreppel). It’s not quite silk, but it isn’t polyester either. Carpenter Center, Cal State Long Beach. (562) 856-1999. musical.org. Closes Nov. 23.

Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. Richard Alfieri’s story of a difficult friendship between an aging Southern widow (Constance Towers, with an erratic accent) and a struggling gay dance instructor (Jason Graae) occasionally rejects subtlety but nevertheless builds an undeniable poignancy in original director Arthur Allan Seidelman’s revival. Falcon Theatre, Burbank. (818) 955-8101. FalconTheatre.com. Closes Nov. 23.

Song of Extinction. EM Lewis attracted notice last year with Heads, a gripping drama about Iraq hostages. Now working in a considerably more nuanced vein, she examines mortality on three, ingeniously connected layers. A woman (Lori Yeghiayan) is told by her doctor that she has only about a week to live. Her husband (Michael Shutt) is preoccupied with the potential eradication of an endangered Bolivian insect he has been studying. And their troubled teenage son (Will Faught) receives crisis counseling from his biology teacher (Darrell Kunitomi), a Cambodian émigré whose memories of his country’s genocide are never far from his thoughts. Heidi Helen Davis’ staging for Moving Arts elegantly prods us toward a more considered awareness of the inevitability that all good things must come to an end, with expert contributions from an incidental score by Geoffrey Pope, evocative scenic design by Stephanie Kerley Schwartz and impeccable performances by a gifted cast. [Inside] the Ford, Cahuenga Pass, Hollywood. (323) 461-3673. FordTheatres.org. Closes Dec. 14.

Spring Awakening. Frank Wedekind’s once-scandalous 1890 play becomes a vibrant 21^st century musical. The German teenagers still look as if they’re in 1890, but they express their feelings about S-E-X and other verboten subjects through a contemporary alt-rock score by Duncan Sheik and hectic, jerky choreography by Bill T. Jones. The story’s tragic, and a closing chorus tries to transcend all that angst, not quite successfully. But Michael Mayer’s staging is ingenious, despite a venue that’s too large. And this cast’s Wendla, Christy Altomare, is better – more artlessly innocent – than her original counterpart in New York . Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center. Downtown L.A. (213) 628-2772. CenterTheatreGroup.org. Closes Dec. 7.

U.S. Drag. Gina Gionfriddo skewers a shallow culture of victimization in her strangely titled satire (which has nothing to do with cross-gender dressing). Two young and would-be fashionable Manhattan roommates (Megan Goodchild, Katie Davies) can’t pay the rent to their workaholic landlord (Nich Cernoch), but they hope that an encounter with a serial attacker will bring them fortune and fame. An earnest therapy group leader (Noah Harpster) preaches that the best way to avoid such encounters is by never helping a stranger for any reason, while one of the attacker’s supposed victims (Johanna McKay) mines her trauma for attention. An independently wealthy young man (Eric Pargac) is obsessed with supporting crime victims, and a tormented neurotic (Shawn Lee) exploits his youth for a quasi-fictional, best-selling memoir. The characters mingle, not always convincingly. The script often feels like marginally related sketches instead of a coherent play, with a particularly abrupt ending. But it yields some sardonically comic moments. Darin Anthony directs for Furious Theatre Company. Pasadena Playhouse’s Carrie Hamilton Theatre. (800) 595-4849. furioustheatre.org. Closes Nov. 22.

War Stories. The rootlessness that’s felt by many kids with parents in the military, as the family moves between bases, was compounded for Joyce Guy. Her family members were about the only blacks in some places (Taiwan, Japan). When they did move into black neighborhoods, she was still an outsider because of her past. Though her absorbing solo chronicle is marketed more as her father’s story than her own, she’s the leading character – and she seems to know more about herself than she does about him. The writing could be fine-tuned, but Guy’s a skilled performer, under Gregg T. Daniel’s direction, and she’s masterfully accompanied by protean musician Peter Walden. LATC Theatre 4, downtown L.A. (213) 489-0995. thenewlatc.com. Closes Nov. 23.

Wicked. Eden Espinosa and Megan Hilty, who were the first to play the Wicked Witch and Glinda in the long-running L.A. production of the musical steamroller, return to Oz for the rest of the run. Stephen Schwartz’s score and Winnie Holzman’s script (from Gregory Maguire’s novel) are simultaneously tongue in cheek and heart on sleeve, with Joe Mantello’s propulsive staging providing plenty of wizardry. Pantages Theatre, Hollywood. (213) 365-3500. BroadwayLA.org. Closes Jan. 11.