Exploring Bradbury country

In recent months, master storyteller Ray Bradbury has blitzed Los Angeles with theatrical adaptations of his work. It’s a creative foment all the more admirable considering Bradbury is past 80. Based on Bradbury’s short fiction, “The October Country” at Theatre West is yet another offering in the writer’s growing theatrical oeuvre. Granted, at least two of the evening’s three short plays have already been dramatized for television anthologies, but what conscientious citizen doesn’t recycle?

Two of the three plays were adapted by Bradbury himself, and all three have been directed by Bradbury’s longtime collaborator, Charles Rome Smith. In contrast to Smith’s unfortunate recent staging of “The Time of Going Away,” three Bradbury one-acts at the Court, this production is well cast and, with few exceptions, deftly executed.

Set in the Louisiana swamp country, “The Jar,” adapted by Terry Pace, features an exceptional cast spearheaded by David Evans Brandt as Charlie, a hapless yokel who achieves dubious glory after he buys a freakish sideshow creature from a carnival barker. Whether the floating thing in the jar is a human head or simply a clot of trash is impossible to determine, but its dark influence on Charlie is unmistakable, as is the piece’s creepy, Southern gothic lyricism.

Lyrical and creepy, too, is the middle play, “Cistern,” in which Anna (Bridget Hanley), a frustrated unmarried woman, pictures her lost lover as a dried corpse in an underground cistern, resurrected to sexual bliss during the rainy season. It’s a tour de force for Hanley, whose effusions range from the poetic to the spine-chilling. Sheryl Nieman is also good as the concerned sister who listens to Anna’s tirade with dawning horror.

The evening’s closer, about a womanizing film director, his screenwriting pal and a beautiful banshee (David Curtis, Charlie Mount and Suzzy London, respectively) is less successful, despite solid performances from the cast. The picturesque but cumbersome set by Joseph M. Altadonna and Daniel Keough slows the action, and having black-clad Grim Reaper figures shift set pieces during the dialogue points out rather than disguises that shortcoming.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“The October Country,” Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends June 28. $20. (323) 851-7977. Running time: 2 hours.

*

One divorce but two perspectives

Admirable ambition accompanies “Mr. and Mrs. B.,” now playing in rep at the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica. This Footprint on the Sun presentation of debut playwright Paul Makkos’ double bill consisting of “Mr. B.” and “Mrs. B.,” dissects a prototypical yuppie divorce with determined intent.

Makkos draws separate, interlocking accounts from each spouse’s perspective, like an Alan Ayckbourn-penned “Once and Again” two-parter.

“Mrs. B.” is Sarah (the affecting Jennifer Nacke), first encountered moving into a Chicago tenement in the immediate wake of separation. After Sarah confronts the previous tenant, suicidal artist Chance (Wayland Boyd, she confronts herself, by way of her relationships with married lover Michael (Christian Martin), the returning Chance and, crucially, ex-husband Max (the subtle Christopher Norkus).

“Mr. B.” reboots through Max’s pot-clouded viewpoint, taking in girlfriend Tracy (Mariah Sussman), his acrid sister, Jennifer (Katie Connor), and kinky real estate agent Rachel (understudy Johanna Torell, in for Tiffany Puhy). The ending augments that of “Mrs. B.” with accrued irony.

The stark designs, notably Joe Pew’s scrim-panel sets, Max Pierson’s lighting and Duncan White’s videography, are striking. So are the committed performances, spearheaded by Nacke and Norkus’ ambivalent chemistry.

Credit for such smart casting and technical cohesion goes to director Benjamin Epps, but his pacing is problematic, overdoing the pregnant pauses. Makkos’ writing similarly fluctuates between pertinent insight and pat explanation, and his dual structure ultimately feels like the device it is.

Nonetheless, if “Mr. and Mrs. B.” could stand further consolidation, given the split-ridden local terrain, its impressive accomplishments are self-evident and recommendable.

-- David C. Nichols

“Mr. and Mrs. B.,” Powerhouse Theatre, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica. “Mrs. B.,” Thursdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5:30 p.m.; “Mr. B.,” Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends June 21. Mature audiences. $15 ($20 for both shows). (866) 633-6246. Running time: Each play is 90 minutes long; Saturday double bill (with dinner break), 4 hours.

*

Much ado about not too much

Any career retrospective worth its salt is based on the obvious assumption that the artist or practitioner has the fame and stature to justify such a retrospective.

That’s hardly a given in “Gene Casey’s Theatresongs,” a musical revue culled from Casey’s canon of past “hits,” now at the Lonny Chapman Group Repertory Theater. Although he has a couple of moderately successful shows to his credit (“Hubba Hubba,” “Flood Tide at Rio Magdalena”), Gene Casey is hardly a household name.

Still, there are some witty and tuneful songs in this production, some of which have been written with collaborators, including Casey’s brother, Jan. Given the right narrative structure, the show might have been consistently entertaining. Unfortunately, under director Dick Woody’s checkered tutelage, the cast struggles through a series of haphazard numbers, linked together by sadly self-congratulatory patter into which famous names and specious allusions drop like leaden balloons. As the narrator (bizarrely scruffy John R. Keller) points out, one of Casey’s shows actually ran in the same theater as “The Fantasticks.” Another “won four DramaLogue Awards.” And, wonder of wonders, one tune was actually “recorded by Fabian.”

Casey, who also serves as musical director and pianist for the show, doth protest too much, and such gratuitously grandiose references are hard to take. That’s a shame, because the cast includes pros, old and young, who are mostly able, willing and winning. Here, they remain talent in the raw, exposed by and vulnerable to the limitations of this self-serving and amateurishly structured piece.

-- F.K.F.

“Gene Casey’s Theatresongs,” Lonny Chapman Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends June 14. $16. (818) 769-7529. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

*

Women’s early struggles in theater

Peopled with famous characters from Restoration London, April De Angelis’ “Playhouse Creatures” at the Open Fist Theatre succeeds as both romp and tragedy. A vivid if somewhat messy valentine to the British theater, it is also a gritty glimpse of the often star-crossed women who were its earliest stars.

The main action is set in 1663, only a few years after Charles II’s decree letting women take the stage. Previously barred from the acting profession, women actors became the rage of London. But life on the wicked stage is a precarious proposition for these newly minted celebrities. A fortunate few, such as the legendary Nell Gwyn (Amy Watt), make a meteoric rise from the gutter to the bedroom of the king.

For the tragic Mrs. Farley (Tisha Terrasini), however, fame is followed by a crushing fall. Feisty Mrs. Marshall (Elizabeth A. Griffin) runs afoul of a vengeful suitor. Even the majestic Mrs. Betterton (Jennifer Kenyon) is sidelined by inexorable time, forced to watch younger actresses partner her actor-manager husband in roles she made famous.

Only aptly named Doll Common (Nicola Hersh), the company’s bawdy character woman and general utility player, lives long enough to tell the tale, which she does, looking back on events from 1687 -- a framing device for the main action. Throughout the play, Doll rings a bell to signal the end of scenes.

That bell is indicative of the episodic structure of De Angelis’ cluttered narrative. Playwright Thomas Otway (Ben Shields) adds a humorous touch, but the relationship between the Earl of Rochester (Joe Hulser) and his paramour-protege Mrs. Barry (Rebecca Metz) seems a dramatic afterthought. Another stunningly graphic scene also seems tacked on -- a violation of the play’s parameters and tone.

No matter. The play is sometimes sprawling but never boring. Under director Faye Jackson’s guidance, snippets from Shakespearean and other period plays are performed to hilariously histrionic effect. Donna Marquet’s set and Melanie Watnick’s costumes are splendidly detailed, and the performers are all terrific, particularly the magnificently mannered Kenyon, a grande dame for the ages.

-- F.K.F.

“Playhouse Creatures,” Open Fist Theatre, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends July 5. $15. (323) 882-6912 Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

*

‘Angry,’ yes, but not fully realized

“I’m not in it for the craft, I’m in it for the glory. If I was in it for the craft, I would have studied!”

This sums up “Jeannie Fitzpatrick Is Angry” at the Third Street Theatre. The latest offering from writer-director Doug Field (“Down South,” “C-Cup”) is a seriocomic diatribe spun by one die-hard 99-cent store patron and Hollywood survivor.

Survival is what the leopard-print-covered title character (Carole Ita White) is all about. It wasn’t always thus. Once, the actress Jeannie was on the rise.

Did she not initiate the idea of giving Rhoda Morgenstern a sister? True, Julie Kavner got the part, but the legend lingers. As does Jeannie’s record of accomplishment with those swine known as men.

Foremost among them, his name a mantra second only to Jeannie’s own, is ex-husband James Harrigan Fitzpatrick, a thespian with a penchant for priests, or so it is implied.

Here the show hits a wall. Field fields some typically bright observations, yet organized narrative development and subtext aren’t ready parts of his arsenal. Although Field’s direction is resourceful, with kicky music and lighting choices, such assets are decorative, not substantive.

White is most appealing, generating some howlers and flashes of poignancy. Still, “Jeannie Fitzpatrick” is not a realized play, but, at best, a promising notion-in-progress.

-- D.C.N.

“Jeannie Fitzpatrick Iis Angry,” Third Street Theatre, 8140 W. 3rd St., L.A. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Ends June 28. $15. (310) 271-1547. Running time: 55 minutes.