CURRENTLY PLAYING NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Bush Is Bad – Alaskan Beauty Queen Edition. Joshua Rosenblum’s Bush Is Bad musical revue, first seen in 2007, returns with a mildly updated version for the 2008 election. Stefanie Black plays Sarah Palin in “I Get What I Want With a Gun,” to the tune of Irving Berlin’s “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun.” Roger Ainslie spends most of his onstage time as a befuddled George W. but also morphs into John McCain and back into Bush during a clever solo. Just in time for the vote on the horrible Proposition 8, Curtis C exaggerates “the gay agenda” in order to make the point that gay couples really just want to be left alone. Generally, the show isn’t quite as updated as I expected. There is virtually no mention of Obama (after the show, co-director James J. Mellon noted that tax laws prohibit nonprofits from endorsing candidates). But the evening serves as a breezy, jaunty jab at the Bush era, and the “Wake Me When It’s 2009” finale sounds surprisingly hopeful. NoHo Arts Center, North Hollywood. (818) 508-7101. thenohoartscenter.com. Closes Nov. 16.

Eagle Hills, Eagle Ridge, Eagle Landing. Three Midwestern white-collar wage slaves (Johnny Clark, Jon Amirkhan, Jeffrey Stubblefield) express unsettling frustrations amid charged chitchat in a bar. Then one of them tries to change his life, in Brett Neveu’s slender comedy. It’s amusing, but without other characters and locations, the play seems to take place in a vacuum. Ron Klier’s staging for VS. and Range View is sharply observed. Hayworth Studio Theatre, near MacArthur Park. (323) 960-7738. plays411.com/eagle. Closes Nov. 15.

The Friendly Hour. Tom Jacobson dramatizes selected minutes from the meetings of a women’s social club in rural South Dakota, from 1934 to 2007. Four actresses (Deana Narone, Mara Marini, Kate Mines, Ann Noble) play individual women, while one (Bettina Zacar) plays at least four. Most of them use Norwegian accents, and they all age fairly convincingly, despite having no time for makeup makeovers. Much like the men in The Four of Us (see review), the women’s friendships wax and wane – but they last a lot longer. Mark Bringelson’s staging yields moments of amusement and poignancy. (866) 811-4111. roadtheatre.org. Closes Nov. 15.

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. Closes Dec. 21.

Halo. An image of Jesus appears on the wall of a Nova Scotia coffee shop, causing turmoil in a small town. A cynical barista (Frances Manzo) is at the center of the action, although her motives remain somewhat confusing in Josh MacDonald’s script. Meanwhile, a young woman on life support is watched by her father and sister. In Bruce Gray’s staging, the characterizations feel more polished than the themes. Theatre 40, Beverly Hills. (310) 364-0535. theatre40.org. Closes Nov. 6.

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.

The Heiress. In 1947, Ruth and Augustus Goetz dramatized Henry James’ 1880 novella Washington Square, about an unmarried woman (Kirsten Potter) in 1850 New York who faces a domineering father (Tony Amendola) and a deceptively charming suitor (Michael A. Newcomer). Packed with nuances as well as stark turns of plot, engaging in its silences as well as its words, it’s well cast and guided by director Martin Benson. South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa. (714) 708-5555. scr.org. Closes Nov. 16.

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 Nov. 22.

Kiss of the Spider Woman. This seldom seen 1993 musical, with a score by Fred Ebb and John Kander, isn’t in their top tier (Cabaret, Chicago), but thanks are due to Havok Theatre and director Nick DeGruccio for giving us a thoroughly professional opportunity to assess the show anew in an intimate space. Based on Manuel Puig’s novel and set in a Latin American country during a repressive regime, Terrence McNally’s script follows two prisoners who are thrown together in the same cell. Molina (Chad Borden) is a homosexual window dresser. Valentin (Daniel Tatar) is a fiery politico who apparently has information about rebel forces. Predictably, they can’t stand each other until they form a bond in the face of their common tormentor – the warden (Ed F. Martin), who speaks along the lines of “We have ways…” Such a grim setting would bred a claustrophobic show if it didn’t also take us into a fantasy world – in this case, Molina’s memories of the escapist movies he knows by heart, starring the ever-glamorous Aurora (Terra C. Macleod), who in one movie became the deadly Spider Woman. Compared to a political prisoner’s visions in a more famous jail-set musical, Man of La Mancha, Molina’s fantasies are simplistic dead ends instead of truly transformational – over-extended opportunities to show off Fosse-like strutting as much as thematic culminations. The score never achieves the state of delirious inevitability that Kander and Ebb sometimes provide. Still, it’s impressively performed by a six-piece orchestra and a burnished cast, also featuring the lustrous Eileen Barnett as Molina’s mother. Bootleg Theatre, Beverly Blvd. west of downtown L.A. (800) 595-4849. havoktheatre.com. Closes Nov. 9.

The Lady With All the Answers. That would be Ann Landers, born Eppie Lederer (yes, her real surname sounded like “Letter Her”). The late advice columnist is resurrected by writer David Rambo, director Brendon Fox and actress Mimi Kennedy. Landers speaks directly to the audience, which is more appropriate here than in many plays, while trying to come up with the words to write her column in which she told the world about her 1975 divorce. Kennedy has an appealingly tart delivery and a reasonable facsimile of the Landers look. But the limitations of the authorized-by-the-estate, solo-show format make this less of a play and more of a tribute. Maybe someday we’ll see a play that includes actors playing Landers’ sister and rival (Abigail Van Buren), husband and daughter. In this play, we hear only the voice of Landers, talking to them on the phone. Until that other play arrives, however, this one is a pleasant time-passer. Pasadena Playhouse, (626) 356-PLAY. Pasadenaplayhouse.org. Closes Nov. 23.

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 Nov. 30.

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.

Push. Kristen Lazarian’s marital drama focuses on an affluent L.A. thirtysomething couple – a local TV reporter (Grinnell Morris) and a gallery owner (Julie Lancaster). The first act is reminiscent of a TV soap opera, except for longer pauses to change the set and a few conspicuously missing scenes. The second act, marginally more interesting, returns to the sequence of events to fill in some of those missing scenes and hammer home the point that suspicions of infidelity can become self-fulfilling – and toxic. It all seems rather commonplace in Michael Connors’ staging. Theatre 40, Beverly Hills. In repertory with Halo. (310) 364-0535. theatre40.org. Closes Nov. 9.

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.

Razorback. As a dying husband and father (Richard Fancy) is ensconced with his wife (Suzanne Ford) and precocious Ivy League son (Edward Tourier) at a Maine cottage, their tender time is rudely interrupted. The man’s brassy ex (Laura Gardner) and their hoodlum first-born son (Jack Maxwell) show up, along with the son’s pregnant girlfriend ((Melissa Paladino). Then a pair of men (Ron Bottita, Patrick Flanagan), seeking revenge on the hoodlum son, barge in. Elina de Santos’ staging for Rogue Machine is strong, but the play’s schematic quality – first the family drama, then the tense hostage crisis – feels somewhat formulaic. Theatre/Theater, mid-city L.A. (323) 960-7726. RogueMachineTheatre.com. Closes Nov. 15.

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 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. 9.

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.

Speech & Debate. Three teenagers in Salem, Ore. join forces to expose adult gay sexual predators while also earning extracurricular credit for their half-hearted attempt to start a speech and debate club. The emphasis in Stephen Karam’s droll comedy is so focused on the geeky kids (Mae Whitman, Michael Welch, Aaron Himelstein), as opposed to the adults who remain offstage, that the play begins to feel almost as insular and obsessed as the kids themselves. But Daniel Henning’s staging is sharply observed. Blank Theatre, Hollywood. (323) 661-9827. TheBlank.com. Closes Nov. 16.

Tragedy: A Tragedy. Will Eno’s portrait of a local TV news team trying to cover the onset of (permanent?) darkness begins with a cutting sense of existential and linguistic satire. Some of the play’s juice begins to dry up as the characters’ moods shift from reassurance to hysteria to exhaustion and what might be death. Still, it’s an intriguing dose of contemporary absurdity. Son of Semele, Beverly east of Vermont. (213) 351-3507. sonofsemele.org. Closes Nov. 16.

Two Trains Running. This play belongs on August Wilson’s B-list, but it’s wonderful to see it produced by the new Ebony Repertory Theatre in a seldom-used 400-seat venue owned by the city of Los Angeles. In 1969, a greasy-spoon café in Pittsburgh’s Hill District is about to be sold for urban renewal. Among the vivid, desperate conversationalists who frequent the place are its owner (Glynn Turman), a numbers runner (Felton Perry), a younger ex-con (Russell Hornsby), a local philosopher (Roger Robinson) and the owner of the nearby mortuary (Earl Billings). These characters tend to talk and talk, often in reaction to offstage developments. Relatively quiet – and more fascinating because of it – are a scarred waitress (Michole Briana White) and a crazy man who keeps repeating the same sentence (Ellis E. Williams). Director Israel Hicks should have judiciously trimmed or quickened the pace of the dialogue – opening night lasted nearly 3½ hours. Holden Performing Arts Center, mid-city L.A. (323) 964-9766. ebonyrepertorytheatre.org. Closes Nov. 9.

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.

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.