‘Steel Kiss’ at Celebration; ‘Rhythm of Torn Stars’ at the Pink; ‘Four Women’ at the Burbage; ‘Picture Perfect’ at EMCEE Studios

Gay bashing, which the city now catalogues as a crime of hatred (on a criminal parity with acts of terror directed at races and creeds), has received scant attention from dramatists, gay or straight.

But the subject is rigorously dramatized, with clarity, complexity, and quicksilver skill, in “Steel Kiss” at Celebration Theatre. It’s unfortunate that the house, which is exclusively committed to gay theater, doesn’t draw more straight patrons. Here is a production that never squanders a moment.

Canadian writer Robin Fulford, who based his play on a lethal gay bashing in 1985 in a park in Toronto, doesn’t trip lightly around verbal and sexual squalor. This is a tough, visceral play. The squeamish should stay home.

Director John Callahan and his four chameleon actors (Joe Frasca, Daniel Mulia, Michael E. Thomas and James Victor) do hat tricks on the small stage. The gifted quartet plunges us into a random animal world, in this case a wire-mesh-fenced park knoll created by Ramsey Avery with vivid night lighting designed by Ron Edwards.

Most impressively, the actors mercurially play both gay and straight characters with easy balance. The characters range from bullying swagger on one extreme to theatrical archness on the other.

If anything, the actors have a better handle on their heterosexual characters, but they role-shift with dexterity. Scenes flare through time and place. For instance, one brief moment depicts a macho high school coach trying to exhort his athletes by calling them “faggots.”

Victor, an electrifying actor, is an especially dangerous tough. The fact that these dudes are interracial better dramatizes the rallying force of machismo and gay bashing.

A post-play forum with the cast encouraged the audience to report gay bashings and illuminated the problem in such divergent areas as Silver Lake and Pasadena.

“But times are changing. I’ve seen gays punch bashers back,” proudly said one patron, a doorman at a gay club in East Pasadena.

If only it were that simple.

At 426 N. Hoover St., Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., through June 18. Tickets: $10. (213) 876-4257.

‘Rhythm of Torn Stars’

The L.A. poetry scene--Helena’s, Cafe Largo, and a few other haunts notwithstanding--has never enjoyed the literary cachet of storied Greenwich Village in the ‘20s or San Francisco Beats in the ‘50s. But the poetic Muse here is in a thriving mode.

The Pink (formerly Pink Elephant) nightclub in Ocean Park just opened a new and funky poetic venue featuring eight actors dramatizing excerpts and sometimes entire works from SoHo poets, in a program called “The Rhythm of Torn Stars.”

Set designer Steven Baim and director Julian Neil’s trilevel, Happy End Cafe set design features brick walls, a fire escape, trash cans, a fireplug, and an attic hovel for actress Meg Foster’s sunglassed doper. You can take a drink to your seat.

Self-abuse and self-absorption are lingering images. But there’s riotous stuff, too, notably actor M.K. Harris’ junkie rendering of two Miguel Pinero poems (“Sunday morning blues . . . junkie waking up”). And the show ends on an affecting, upbeat note, personified by Foster’s recovered druggie: “I’ve been cool too long/Life’s the hot concept . . . I’m tired of promiscuous grief/I want to grow up.”

Far from indulging a poetry reading, director Neil (a SoHo native) has fashioned a theatrical and live musical experience based entirely on the words of 11 Lower East Side poets (including Pinero, Ted Berrigan, Lucky Cienfuegos, Elinor Nauen and Frank O’Hara).

Among the cast of four men and four women, Tate Donovan’s wired-up Puerto Rican is gripping, and Michael Lally, who was indeed a SoHo poet, is a vivid drunk, uttering the haunting line: “All the empty holes where stars have been.”

At 2810 Main St., Ocean Park, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., indefinitely. Tickets: $15. (213) 466-1767.

‘Four Women’

The entitled women are golden girls between 45 and 70, fallen on emotionally hard times. They meet in a women’s center where each has nervously gone to seek counseling for personal miseries.

Ruth Phillips’ dramatic comedy at the Burbage Theatre Ensemble carries a strong identity for aging audiences, and a candor about sexual experiences that may surprise the faint-of-heart.

The play suffers from a stiff, predictable structure. The characters are limited to scenes at the women’s center where they unravel their stories before an unseen therapist and begin their overhaul through personal interaction.

Director Ivan Spiegel gives each actress all the live ammo she wants, and Lynn Cartwright, Florence Schauffler, Joan Crosby and Kay St. Germain alternately claw the air (in two cases the very floor--the stage is bare except for four chairs).

The acting is warmly felt in the cumulative power of Schauffler’s calming harmony and St. Germain’s touching dimness. Cartwright and Crosby, who have the showier roles, tend to overkill their brittle characterizations.

At 2330 Sawtelle Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays, 7:30 p.m., Sundays, 4 p.m., through July 9. Tickets: $10-$14. (213) 478-0897.

‘Picture Perfect’

The playing space for this drama of a stressed-out marriage is delicious: a gentrified loft in downtown L.A. with a modern kitchen and futuristic lighting fixtures. It’s a great environment.

Regrettably, the play, Stephen Guerber’s yuppified, obsessive “Picture Perfect,” is dismal.

The same space, at the EMCEE Studios in the warehouse district, was beautifully utilized in a rougher form last year for “Bukowski,” a rendering of the famous L.A. street poet. But now all one has to admire is the gleaming set design of Jim Davis and Renee Nahum.

The two-character play, starring Chris Cote and Bridget Hoffman as the doomed couple, is a grueling, unredeemable study of an alcoholic, possessive husband and his wimpy wife.

Cote at least is despicable. Hoffman’s wife is so passive you resent her very paleness. When she finally walks out, it’s too late to care.

The funny thing is that this weak play should be so well produced. Director Jack MacCarthy neatly uses outside stairs, and he and Cote know a good drunk scene. But the sober moments are deadly.

At 2140 E. 7th Place, 1 1/2 blocks south of 7th Street at Santa Fe Avenue, Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m., through June 18. Tickets: $8. (213) 623-6085.