The son learns from his fathers

Award-winning television writer Richard Kramer’s first play, “Theater District,” now in its West Coast premiere at the Black Dahlia Theatre, is a sensitive and funny coming-of-age story that examines what happens when an elastic extended family snaps back on itself. Droll and wrenching, Kramer’s comedy-drama is practically perfect -- right up until a warm and fuzzy ending violates its intelligently brittle tone.

Sixteen-year-old Wesley (Josh Breslow) has moved in with his attorney father, Kenny (Jeff Sugarman), a gay activist whose partner is charming former actor George (Bill Brochtrup). That’s fine with Wesley’s mom, Lola (Suzanne Ford), a broad-minded book editor now married to a doctor (Allan Kolman) who shares her liberal sentiments.

Unable to break through to his emotionally inaccessible father, Wesley turns to George for acceptance and friendship. All are badly rattled when Wesley gets injured in a gay bashing directed at his openly homosexual best friend, Theo (Isaac Laskin) -- a terrifying reminder of a subterranean social order these affluent urban sophisticates rarely abut.

Mike Durst’s lighting nicely sets off Craig Siebels’ stark and versatile production design. This charming cast establishes a heartwarming camaraderie, mining the play’s humor and pathos with never a cheap moment. Playing both a flamboyant maitre d’ and a gay hospital clerk, Lenny Von Dohlen shows range and humanity in roles that, given a less sensitive approach than in Matt Shakman’s fine staging, could have been construed as caricatures.

Brochtrup is particularly fine as a self-accepting gay man whose inner fatherliness is brought to the fore by the needy Wesley. The ever-astute Shakman unearths the emotional complexities under Kramer’s quicksilver repartee. Now, if only Kramer would rein in the blatantly expressed, television-pat sentiments of that final scene. Trust us. We take his point.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Theater District,” Black Dahlia Theatre, 5453 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; also June 2, 9 and 16, 8 p.m. Ends June 27. $20. (866) 468-3399. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

*

Soccer star scores a goal in ‘Clare’

A quietly touching portrait of an Irish soccer star facing life changes in the twilight of his career, John B. Keane’s bittersweet comedy, “The Man From Clare,” is sure to resonate with anyone who’s had to let go of dreams as part of growing up.

Impeccably nuanced performances in Theatre Banshee’s heartfelt production draw the full measure of pathos from Keane’s beautifully penned character sketches, which embody the Irish gift for finding poetry in everyday experience. When Padraic (Dan Harper), the hero of his county’s amateur soccer team, reflects on his poor performance in the national finals, he simply but eloquently speaks of “my heart held back by my knees.”

Aside from his past glory on the playing field, Padraic leads the lonely, unglamorous life of a fisherman. Soccer has left no room for women in Padraic’s life, but a sudden opportunity to change that arrives during the team’s trip to the finals, in the form of his host’s painfully shy daughter, Nellie (Rebessa Marcotte).

Lack of self-confidence has put Nellie well on the path to spinsterhood, and at first her self-deprecation blinds Padraic to any romantic possibilities. But the actors’ wonderful chemistry -- aided by Barry Lynch’s lively turn as Nellie’s matchmaking father -- makes their growing attraction convincing.

Padraic’s progress toward a new stage of life pits him against his self-centered coach (Andrew Leman) and a talented upstart player (Josh Thoemke), and amid rueful reflections, brawls, song and beer, director Sean Branney forges a charming portrait of the sacrifices made along the way to fulfillment.

-- Philip Brandes

“The Man From Clare,” Gene Bua Acting for Life Theatre, 3435 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends July 3. $15. (818) 628-0688. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

*

‘Wartime’ alarms raised once again

History’s cyclical ironies enrich “Life During Wartime” at Company of Angels. Since its 1990 La Jolla premiere, Chicago theater stalwart Keith Reddin’s black satire on selling suburban paranoia has withstood critical discourse to thrive regionally (though its 1997 film version, “The Alarmists,” is mainly for cultists).

For Reddin’s premise -- corrupt home security systems firm, a simile for Western imperialism -- seems ultra-trenchant at present. Like the first image seen through the upstage scrim of director Eric Mofford’s stylized set: an ascending, American flag-draped shape of casket aspect. Old Glory reveals Eve, apple in hand, and “Wartime’s” barking pitch proceeds.

Affable boss Heinrich (Scot Renfro, redoubtable) and sultry rep Sally (Lauren Gasparo) coach neophyte Tommy (the superb Jon Malmed) in alarmist marketing. On his first sale, Tommy scores with older divorcee Gale (the mesmeric Tricia Allen). Her disaffected son, Howard (Christian Arroyo), is blase, about everything.

The company’s policy on easy-mark domiciles results in calamity and draconian disclosure. Throughout, Protestant reformer John Calvin (Tony Gatto, a hoot) acts as imperious envoy, to remind everyone that “we are covered with infinite filth.”

Though outsized, Reddin’s adroit text makes a caustic case.

Mofford’s ace cast nails the mercurial emotional shifts beneath the grim guffaws.

Other notables include Benjamin Anton and Layla Lyons’ NRA poster pair, Yurie Ann Cho’s waitress, Michael Merton’s interrogator and Michael Erger’s barfly.

Such straight-faced investment outweighs predestined polemic and the free-willed scene shifts, which battle Lincoln Morrison’s lighting, Tucker’s sound and the rising tension. This dishevelment cannot cow “Wartime’s” relevance, but it does create an uphill campaign.

-- David C. Nichols

“Life During Wartime,” Company of Angels Theatre, 2106 Hyperion Ave., L.A. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends June 19. Mature audiences. $15. (323) 883-1717. Running time: 2 hours.

*

‘Hecuba’ faces life’s harsh trials

A riveting central performance and a smart modern adaptation bring new clarity and depth to the vengeful mythological protagonist of “Hecuba” in Workshop 360’s edgy staging at 2100 Square Feet.

Diana Castle provides the Sturm und Drang and Timberlake Wertenbaker (“Our Country’s Good”) the contemporary spin to Euripides’ lesser-known tragedy, which might have been a bigger hit had it been billed as “Troy II” on the Acropolis marquee for its 425 BC opening.

It’s the aftermath of the war, during which conquered Trojan Queen Hecuba (Castle) has already seen the 50 children she’s borne (ouch!) whittled down to two. She receives orders from the Greek governing council that daughter Polyxena (Azizah Hayes) must be sacrificed to appease the wrathful ghost of Achilles (an offstage apparition, so, alas, no Brad Pitt cameo op).

Both mother and daughter bear this doom with regal dignity -- but there’s worse to come with the news that neighboring Thracian king Polymestor (Doug Tompos), to whose safekeeping Hecuba had entrusted her remaining son, has caved in to political expediency and had the boy murdered. Driven into a maniacal rage that rivals Medea’s (and with even greater justification), Hecuba deploys a murderous chorus of acting students to exact revenge on Polymestor and his two young sons.

Always compelling, Castle skillfully bridges the character contradictions between Euripides’ two subplots with the revelation that her truly intolerable torments are dealt out not by the gods’ cruelty but by man’s treachery.

L. Zane’s brisk staging creates plenty of ominous atmosphere around the play’s profound meditations on suffering, though at times uneven casting in the peripheral roles imposes the theme on the audience more fully than strictly necessary.

Wertenbaker’s insightful translation illuminates another key conflict in Time Winters’ well-played Agamemnon, ironically torn between formal allegiances to a dubious “friend” and compassion for a sympathetic “enemy” when adjudicating the concluding trial of Polymestor vs. Hecuba.

-- P.B.

“Hecuba,” 2100 Square Feet, 5615 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends June 20. $20. (310) 578-2228. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

*

‘Henry IV’: Belly up to the bar, boys

If a production of “King Henry IV, Part One” could succeed simply on the strength of its Falstaff, Circle X’s new production would be a knockout. In Jerry Kernion’s richly drawn, finely nuanced performance, Shakespeare’s lazy, lying, lovable fool is fully hilarious and faintly sad.

This “sweet creature of bombast” presides generously over drunken revels in the Eastcheap tavern where young Prince Hal (David Paul Wichert) is slumming and sowing oats. Under director Tara Flynn, the show’s most beautifully realized moments come when this unlikely mentor’s indomitable good humor is momentarily shocked into submission by his young charge’s steely will.

The rest of the show, alas, is less fully realized. Flynn stages all too many machinations of Hal’s father the king (Patrick Gorman) and assorted allies and enemies on and around an ungainly half-circled ramp at one end of Shakespeare Festival/LA’s broad, low-ceilinged space. Designed by David Holmes, this distancing platform is awkwardly framed by a parade float’s worth of white roses.

That historical allusion, along with most of the history related in this play, is likely to be lost on the young theatergoers for whom this production is ostensibly designed as part of a National Endowment for the Arts program. It’s a shame, since Prince Hal’s coming-of-age saga makes a terrific youthful introduction to Shakespeare.

But from its players’ largely undistinguished delivery to costumer Ela Erwin’s early “Star Trek” tunics and boots, from a series of static face-offs to the clanging, shouting, lights-flashing battle climax, this “Henry,” unlike the play’s prodigal prince, goes astray whenever it leaves Eastcheap.

-- Rob Kendt

“King Henry IV, Part One,” Circle X Theatre Company at Shakespeare Festival/LA Studio, 1238 W. 1st St., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends June 6. Free, but reservations required. Canned-food donation requested. (213) 975-9891. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

*

Mere sketches on this ‘Canvas’

When dealing with historical figures, a dramatist must be accorded a degree of inventive scope. However, M.L. Banyas, author of “Cassatt and Degas: Unfinished Canvas,” now at the Hudson Avenue Theatre, should have her artistic license revoked.

Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt had a long and turbulent friendship, but there is no hard evidence that they were anything more than comrades in art. Here, Banyas amplifies that relationship into a full sexual affair. That’s certainly an allowable interpretation. The problem is that Banyas’ play is a melodramatic bodice ripper of a Harlequin romance vintage. All steam and no substance, the story is thin to the point of transparency.

The action takes place in two time frames -- 1914, when Degas and Cassatt, both now elderly and blind, are preparing for a sentimental reunion, and the late 1870s and 1880s, when the artists are establishing themselves in the Paris art scene. Ilia Volok and Mickie Banyas (the author, we assume, although the program is coy on that point) play the young Degas and Cassatt, while John Rixey Moore and Judith Scarpone play the older versions.

Kimberly Jentzen Spingeld’s directorial missteps include saddling the majority of her cast with phony French accents more suitable to a music hall sketch than a serious drama. Julie Pop (who also did the lovely costumes) and Jennifer Naimo play Degas and Cassatt’s respective maids, who age not a whit over the decades -- all the more startling since their employers do. If she couldn’t cast older actors as the older Zoe and Mathilde, Spingeld should have coached Pop and Naimo to suggest age through their body language.

To their credit, Banyas and Volok whip up some credible sexual chemistry in defiance of their dreadful dialogue, and the elegant Scarpone layers some class onto this unfinished and badly damaged canvas.

-- F.K.F.

“Cassatt and Degas: Unfinished Canvas,” Hudson Avenue Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends June 27. $15. (323) 960-7784. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.