A dream just out of reach

In John Steinbeck’s unsentimental chronicles of Depression-era America, human compassion is a sparse commodity. Yet it defiantly springs forth amid the direst adversity, like blades of grass poking through asphalt.

Such is the unlikely friendship in “Of Mice and Men.” Steinbeck’s 1937 drama about a retarded man-child and the hard-edged drifter who looks after him has been revived often, but for all its familiarity it connects with heartbreaking potency in Diane Hurley’s staging for Pacific Resident Theatre.

Hurley’s notes describe her close emotional connection between the material and her own experiences raising a mildly autistic son, a perspective that lends authenticity beyond mere stagecraft to the production. The central performance Hurley gets from Ericjohn Scialo as the misfit Lenny is heartbreaking; Scialo’s Lenny never surrenders his sweetness and lack of guile, even when driven to violence by impulses and circumstances he cannot understand, much less control. Our natural feelings of protectiveness toward a child’s innocence are only heightened by the sad knowledge that Lenny will never grow up -- and that the rift between his mental age and his prodigious physical strength will inevitably lead to tragedy.

Other compelling performances add depth and detail to the broadly written characters who populate the grimy Salinas ranch where the play is set. William Lithgow’s aging crippled field worker and Curtis C’s resentful stable hand are desperate to join George and Lenny on their farm. Kristina Harrison’s trampy newlywed itches to escape her stifling marriage to the boss’ abusive son (Neil McGowan). Bryan Kent’s rugged farmhand provides the play’s moral compass.

As George, Lenny’s companion and protector, Robb Derringer rises to the challenge Steinbeck set by closing off easy explanations for the two men’s friendship. They aren’t related, and George has difficulty explaining even to himself why he’s compelled to care for the helpless burden that is Lenny. But when George recites his vision of the little farm he wants to buy for them one day, Derringer shows us the reason -- Lenny connects George with his own dreams.

Dreams are all these characters have to keep them going, and yet their dreams are far from grandiose. What makes Steinbeck’s story so timely and urgent is that they are the stuff of everyday security and comfort -- and seem to be slipping once again beyond the reach of many.

-- Philip Brandes

“Of Mice and Men,” Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Sept. 5. $20. (310) 822-8392. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

Careful, teacher’s having a bad day

A stinging slap in the face of glib bromides about the salutary power of education, Robert Athayde’s 1977 “Miss Margarida’s Way” serves up plenty of dark sarcasm in the classroom, if not very persuasive thought control. Subtitled with withering quaintness “A Tragicomic Monologue for an Impetuous Woman,” the play is a real-time nervous breakdown as well as a strident meditation on the hopelessly blurred line between authority and hypocrisy.

It is also, and perhaps above all, a grinding workout for a thoroughbred performer, and in Bonita Friedericy, director Bruce Wieland’s sparkling new production has one of L.A.’s most mercurial, mordantly charming and out-and-out brilliant actors. Strutting and sidling with eerie precision around a set (by Susan Gratch) dominated by chalkboard green and the regulation wood-grain of schoolroom desks, Friedericy makes this bitter, scabrous, simpering monster of an eighth-grade teacher into an icon both hauntingly universal and unsettlingly immediate.

In chunky black shoes and lean, smart skirt ensemble (uncredited costumes), her wig a taut pile that’s part laurel wreath, part sparrow’s nest, the trash-talking Miss Margarida -- pronounced “MAG-a-ree-da” -- embodies the nightmare of discredited yet still empowered leadership. She transparently contradicts herself, flies wildly off the handle and mixes a toxic cocktail of hilariously blunt discouragement, digression and condescension.

A silent, shaggy student (Flannery Lunsford) sits to one side as the main target for Miss M’s abuse, though Friedericy includes us all as stunned pupils caught in the headlight glare of her smilingly oppressive gaze.

A drunken second act wobbles but rights itself with an urgently suggestive climax, under Trevor Norton’s exquisite lights, in which Miss M stumbles onto the meaning of life -- or rather, given the play’s epistemological preoccupations, the meaning of meaning.

For a solo show as provoking as it is virtuosic, “Miss Margarida’s Way” is a primrose path indeed.

-- Rob Kendt

“Miss Margarida’s Way,” presented by Stage Door Johnny Productions at the Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. today and Aug. 14, 19, 20, 21; 7 p.m. Aug. 15 and 22. Ends Aug. 22. $15. (323) 860-9860. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

*

An alarm bell, a smear campaign

“Oh, is there going to be an election?” So goes one line from “An Enemy of the People,” and few classics could be more applicable to the current campaign trail. Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 study of solo integrity against group tyranny has obvious relevance, a fact not lost on the open-air production at Dr. Paul Carlson Memorial Park in Culver City.

Certainly, Arthur Miller’s user-friendly translation, studded with words such as “dictator” and phrases such as “Poison is rotting the body politic,” exploits this pertinence. In a coastal Norwegian town gaining acclaim for its successful health spa, physician Thomas Stockmann (Scott Berg) makes an unsettling discovery: Toxic dumping from the tanning factory owned by Stockmann’s father-in-law (Leon Cohen) has poisoned the spa’s waters.

Stockmann’s wife (Bruna Raynaud) agonizes between loyalty to her husband and fear of displacement. Their daughter (Gina E. Pooley) supports her father, jeopardizing her teaching position. The newspaper editor (Davis Campbell) juggles journalism and his threatened loss of revenue. Thomas’ brother, the town mayor (Ken MacFarlane), spearheads a smear campaign that infects the populace.

Director Alexa Hunter keeps things straightforward, Anne Marie Allen’s costumes have point and the youthful cast has collegiate zeal. Berg and MacFarlane lack nuance, but they sustain the central argument. The emotionally acute Raynaud’s accent lends authenticity, Campbell is keen and Pooley, pitched directly between Cynthia Nixon and Amber Tamblyn, is a find.

Their colleagues range from deft (Paul Ramirez’s Billings) to community theatrical (Jimmy Bangley’s cartoonish moderate). Still, though more plucky than probing, less C-SPAN than Oktoberfest, the production has a topicality that’s undeniable. Bring sunblock and lawn chairs.

-- David C. Nichols

“An Enemy of the People,” Dr. Paul Carlson Memorial Park, Motor Avenue and Braddock Drive, Culver City. 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Ends Sunday. Free. (310) 712-5482. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

*

The ideas seem to be cut short

Shel Silverstein was an American original, a puckish beatnik swinger-songwriter who also created some of the most enduring children’s books of the 1960s and ‘70s.

His “adult” works appear less enduring, based on the evidence of “Shel’s Shorts,” a sampling of startlingly unfunny playlets being given a modest production at the posh Santa Monica hair salon Kuttingroom.

These are mostly brief two-character sketches based on simple contradictions: A couple bicker over annoying habits, service personnel lock horns with customers, fully armed lovers spar over who’ll shoot first. The writing tends toward repetition and witless profanity.

There are exceptions. “The Lifeboat Is Sinking” spins out a twisted psychological “exercise” involving a husband (Charlie Van Erman) and a wife (Jennifer Lamar), deftly satirizing the push-pull of marital drama. “No Skronking” has whiffs of Ionesco and the evening’s only inspired exchange: When a diner (Jack Maxwell, fine throughout) asks a waitress (Caroline Westheimer) what “skronking” is, she mutters a demurral and reiterates a sign’s warning: “No skronking.” In the otherwise flimsy “All Cotton,” Jen Fitch nails a shop girl’s false sunniness.

Director Pamela Dresser doesn’t use the salon playing area with any effect except in “The Dreamers,” a dark dialogue between two janitors about their transgressive urges, well played by Henry LeBlanc and Patrick Hancock.

It’s great to make an audience collaborate in conjuring a play’s world, sans elaborate design elements. But “Shel’s Shorts” is an imagination drain. We’re stuck picturing how these plays might be done better until we realize they’re not worth the effort.

-- R.K.

“Shel’s Shorts,” GuerilLA Theatre at Kuttingroom, 1221 2nd St., Santa Monica. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Ends Aug. 28. $20. (323) 650-2493. Running time: 90 minutes.

*

Life in crisis? Pick up the phone

Volunteer social work for an inner city youth hotline propels a sheltered suburban teenager through a turbulent rite of passage in “24 Hours,” a terribly earnest rock musical from Cal State Fullerton now playing at Hollywood’s Stella Adler Theatre.

“I have no illusions about this,” a wised-up Brian (Matthew Rocheleau) says after his immersion in the sobering problems of drug addicts, skanky street urchins, maladjusted gays and suicidal housewives. “This is not some ‘We Are the World’ singalong.”

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what it is. With its energetic, mostly student cast, glossed-over social issues and inexhaustible font of affirmative, youth-oriented messages, the show plays like “Godspell” meets “Room 222.”

While “24 Hours” is not overtly billed as a Christian rock entry, it’s clear that author Bruce Goodrich and composer Rob Hartmann are working in that genre even before Jesus literally phones in a cameo.

Familiar pop rhythms drive the show’s 25 songs, which are content to skim the surface of the characters’ experience. After one of Brian’s early intervention attempts ends in a caller’s suicide, a plucky co-worker (Risha Hill) consoles him with the lyrics “It’s not his fault/It’s not your fault/That’s the way it goes.”

Brian’s resolve is tested when he quits in the middle of his shift, but he’s lured back to the crisis center by his attraction to another co-worker, Misty (accomplished singer Shannon Mills), a troubled hottie from the other side of the tracks.

In one way or another, the center volunteers are all battling their respective woes from the show’s dutiful roster of social problems. Notables include a charismatic reformed juvenile delinquent-turned-male-stripper (Mark Shunock), a quick-witted alienated homosexual (Daniel Canady) and the center’s immature director (Charles Woodruff), who uses Brian as a pawn in a ploy to get back with his ex-girlfriend (Fleur Phillips) and recover his Laker tickets from her (it’s unclear which is the higher priority). Masaya Palmer doubles as one of the volunteers and a troubled caller who, in the show’s strongest dramatic sequence, leads Brian to discover new confidence and competence in helping others.

The positive energy and enthusiasm of the young, committed cast are commendable, even when the material falls short of the ambitions of its creators.

-- P.B.

“24 Hours,” Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., second floor, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 22. $25. (323) 851-7183. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.