A bubbling caldron of mayhem in ‘Macbett’

Revising a play that is already revisionist is a tricky proposition. But director Neno Pervan boldly dickers with Eugene Ionesco’s “Macbett” in Il Dolce Theater Company’s gratifyingly revisionist staging at the Globe Playhouse in West Hollywood.

An absurdist take on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” Ionesco’s lengthy 1972 play is remarkably faithful to the dramatic arc of its source material. So too is Pervan’s drastically abbreviated version, taken from Charles Marowitz’s translation and presented here by special permission of Ionesco’s daughter.

Pervan’s production is Cliffs Notes brief yet in keeping with Ionesco’s absurdist spirit. What results is surprisingly perspicacious Shakespeare, albeit with a few soap-opera embellishments, most notably Ionesco’s innovative subplot in which Duncan’s disgruntled wife has a steamy affair with Macbett, urges him on to regicide and subsequently marries him.

A nimble cast, including Pervan himself, keeps the action clean and streamlined. Hilariously cowardly and self-serving, Pervan’s Duncan is a preening dandy of suitably ridiculous ilk. As Macbett, glowering Zoran Radanovich hits the right emotional levels but needs to scale back his leaping, occasionally unmotivated aerobics. In the most full-fledged performance of the evening, Pamela Clay plays Lady Duncan/Lady Macbett as a saucy siren on the downhill slope to lunacy and despair.

Now for a quibble. For some odd reason, Pervan blocks numerous scenes on the stage floor, beneath the sightlines of a majority of the audience, which strains and cranes to see glimpses of the prostrate actors. Surely, a few suitably placed platforms could have raised this production, not to mention its performers, to new heights.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Macbett,” Globe Playhouse, 1107 N. Kings Road, West Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Dec. 12 only. Ends Dec. 12. $20. (310) 458-3312. www.macbettatglobe.org. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

*

‘Foreigner’ studies U.S. behavior

“How does one acquire a personality?” asks the title character of “The Foreigner.” “What must it be like to be able to tell a funny story?” Since its 1983 debut, the late Larry Shue’s tale of a British nonentity feigning non-English status in Georgia has answered that question for countless audiences, a genuine regional staple.

Cuckolded hero Charlie (the tickling JD Cullum) arrives at the Fishing Lodge Resort in Tilghman County (finely designed by Charles Erven) accompanied by military chum Froggy (Paul V. O’Connor). Charlie’s discomfort spurs Froggy to present him as unable to speak or comprehend the language. Proprietor Betty Meeks (Angela Paton, alternating with Maree Cheatham) is charmed. Petulant ex-deb Catherine (Alyss Henderson) warms to this “good listener.” Her fiance, the is-he-or-isn’t-he-nice Rev. David (John Hemphill), lets Charlie witness his setup of Catherine’s backward brother, Ellard (Colin Fickes). This not-so-dumb bunny, in the funniest scene, “teaches” Charlie to speak by demonstration. Meanwhile, David’s racist crony, Owen (Dave Florek), shares his sinister plans with Charlie.

Despite spotty pace, Steve Albrezzi’s staging is agreeable. Cullum’s delicious turn, listening and reacting with lightning speed, centers his able colleagues. At the reviewed performance, Paton was still finding beats, but her blank-faced dithering is essentially ideal, as are O’Connor’s BBC bluster, Henderson’s sour-sweet snap, etc., and Fickes almost steals it.

The baddies elicit topical unease, hardly conducive to farce. Owen’s aim of white supremacy doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore, and the climactic face-off with Klansmen plays as stark melodrama. Still, in “The Foreigner,” good prevails.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Foreigner,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Also 3 p.m. this Sunday, Dec. 12 and Jan. 2. No shows Dec. 22-26, Dec. 31. Ends Jan. 30. $20.50 to $25. (310) 477-2055 or www.odysseytheatre.com. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

Twist on a holiday tale proves tame

“A Christmas Twist,” a comic blend of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and “Oliver Twist,” was first performed in 1991 by Chicago’s Illegitimate Players. Although the play is credited to three writers -- Doug Armstrong, Keith Cooper and Maureen Morley -- one senses that the original production benefited from plenty of improvisational input from the company.

In the Theater Gang’s production at the Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena, the quality of freewheeling merriment essential to the play’s success is largely lost. That’s due to the faulty comic timing of this uneven cast, which strains for laughs in John LaLonde’s conscientious but belabored staging.

“Twist” has been a seasonal staple for the Inland Empire-based Theater Gang for several years now. Indeed, many past cast members have carried over to the Fremont production. It’s all the more puzzling, then, why this particular outing seems so rudimentary. Frequent line flubs are evident, and several in the company never rise above a community-theater standard. As a result, other actors tend to overcompensate, amping up their already high-voltage performances to circuit-blowing levels.

Lest one sounds too Scrooge-like, there are worthy elements as well. The physical production is excellent, particularly the hoot-worthy costumes by Theatre Co./Linda Vick. Indeed, there are enough visual treats and funny business to keep things festive. Dan Walker is a walking sight gag as Tiny Twist, a towering urchin in a Buster Brown wig, while Howard Wilson is a workmanlike Scrooge. A highlight of opening weekend was a one-time-only guest appearance by Debra Wilson (“Mad TV”), whose Don Rickles-esque set before Act II was the wildest kink in this too-tame “Twist.”

-- F.K.F.

“A Christmas Twist,” Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena. 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays. Ends Dec. 11. $20. (626) 991-2460. www.StageworksTheaterArts.org. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

*

The gloves come off in ‘Anatol Vs.’

When it comes to the battle of the sexes, the late 19th century comedies of Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler still prove remarkably prescient. Trained in the newly emerging field of psychology, Schnitzler rendered his keenly observed politics of seduction and betrayal with the skilled eye of a dramatist pushing the barriers of theatrical convention.

In “Anatol Vs.” at the Met Theatre, adaptor and director L. Flint Esquerra follows his predecessor’s lead in structural experimentation.

The original “Anatol” was Schnitzler’s early foray into his signature format, an episodic cycle of short thematically related scenes depicting the callous exploits of an upper-class serial philanderer. Esquerra’s updated version reframes the piece as a modern-day boxing match between the amoral Anatol (Eric Riviera) and a succession of his conquests, played with impressive range by Lisa Welti.

Preserving Schnitzler’s unsentimental clarity, these contemporary private and public encounters between Anatol and his lovers span a gamut of emotions. Underlying them all, however, is a pattern of seduction, infatuation, boredom, breakup and regret in which the characters are trapped. In some instances, Anatol maintains the emotional upper hand, in others the woman prevails, but the knockouts are all technical -- there are no true winners.

Esquerra’s stylistic flourishes include a striking intro ballet of pugilistic body poses, a hauntingly staged epilogue set to “Stormy Weather” and numerous fourth-wall penetrations in which cast members step outside their roles to address the audience, supposedly as themselves. In the most amusing instance, a scantily clad Ring Girl (Saemi Nakamura) rebels against her exploitation and performs a scene from “The Glass Menagerie,” the perennial showcase for aspiring starlets.

Esquerra’s boxing conceit, however, proves an uneasy graft that clashes with the original source in several important respects. Schnitzler’s clinical neutrality is overruled by a judgmental perspective that clearly favors the women, in the process shifting the focus from Riviera’s sociopathic Anatol as the central character. The subtlety of Schnitzler’s trenchant psychological insights are buried in heavy-handed antics that hit the audience like body blows. It takes all of Welti’s considerable skills to restore some delicate shadings to the piece.

-- Philip Brandes

“Anatol Vs.,” Met Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., Los Angeles. 8:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays. No performance today. Ends Dec. 19. $15. (323) 957-1152 or www.themettheatre.com. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.