‘Your Mind’ is a welcome distraction

In the two one-acts that make up “Out of Your Mind,” the latest offering from the GuerriLA Theatre, playwright Steven Kane wobbles a fine line between the clever and the inconsequential but is steadied by a balancing charm.

The production’s novel venue is a private residence in the hills off Mulholland. (GPS is highly recommended.) Wine and snacks are served before the show, and the cast mingles freely with the audience. It’s a loose and mellow ambience that sets the mood for the evening, which does not so much strain the brain as entertain.

The solipsistic opener, “In the Night of the Bed,” commences on a Hollywood film set, where all and sundry fawn slavishly on Molly (Kelly Ann Ford), the film’s curiously abstracted star. It seems these “actors” exist only in Molly’s recurring dream. When an unwelcome “extra” (David Goryl) threatens to arouse Molly -- double entendre intended -- the regular cast is understandably panicky. Pointedly nonsensical, the playlet echoes the Red King’s famous dream from “Through the Looking Glass,” and indeed, Kane wryly invokes Carroll in the dialogue.

The closer, “Rhinovirus,” is a dystopian comedy set in “New New York,” where health and happiness are required by law. Here too, Kane’s literary antecedents are obvious. A chance Chekhovian sneeze -- in this context, a criminal offense -- propels the compliant, colorless Pomerantz (Jerry Weil) on the road to radicalism.

Considering that this is somebody’s living room, the playing area is snug, but director Jane Lanier maximizes the space’s potential, save for her bizarre decision to stage the penultimate scene of the show out of easy view of the audience. Kane ends both his tales with formulaic patness -- perhaps a holdover from his extensive experience as a television writer.

Although “Out of Your Mind” is a bit too tidy to fulfill its surrealistic potential, it will nonetheless drive you to a welcome distraction.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Out of Your Mind,” 2806 Nichols Canyon Place, Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays, 7:30 p.m. Saturdays. July 13, 14, Aug. 3, 4, 24, 25, Sept. 14, 15, Oct. 5, 6. $27.50. (818) 972-2467. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

A Vietnam vet’s search for meaning

It’s been more than two decades since the Vietnam vet-fueled drama “Tracers” took off from the Odyssey Theatre to blaze across the nation’s stages. In “Walk’n Thru the Fire” at the Hayworth Theatre, “Tracers” creator John DiFusco and four talented actors share the touchstones and lessons of his life with appealing brio.

Equal parts memory play and cauterizing ritual, this absorbing autobiographical piece reflects DiFusco’s lifelong search for meaning. As sparely elegant as the pantheistic shrine that centers designer Sara Ryung Clement’s set, “Walk’n” packs a lot into two-plus hours.

Cultural and metaphysical questions dominate DiFusco’s account, which goes from his working-class childhood in 1940s Massachusetts, to Vietnam, then California and back. The potency that DiFusco displays with actors Richard Azurdia, Michael T. Kachingwe, Kwana Martinez and Eileen O’Connell, who form a virtual DiFusco Family Story Theatre, is easily worth admission.

Under the smooth direction of Che’Rae Adams and Janet Roston, “Walk’n” dives into issues that DiFusco has grappled with for a lifetime. From the Vietnam service that spurred “Tracers” to the sense of mortality raised by the deaths of five siblings, DiFusco relates his unblinking view of what he’s learned with passion, grace and humor.

The production is clearly a labor of love, with glossy contributions by J. Kent Inasy (lighting) and Cricket S. Myers (sound), and it carries an engaging authority that trumps some self-indulgent patches. DiFusco’s onstage colleagues are excellent, yet the interjected business occasionally interrupts rather than enhances the narrative flow. Nor is every detail necessary, which results in over-length. Still, it’s DiFusco’s tale to tell, and he does so with unimpaired ability. It’s good to have him back on the boards where he belongs.

-- David C. Nichols

“Walk’n Thru the Fire,” Hayworth Theatre, 2509 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends July 21. $20. (800) 838-3006 or www.brownpapertickets.com. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

An aging gangster tells his story

These days, he thinks of himself as a retired businessman and seems to believe he’s done nothing as underhanded or exploitative as some who could more legitimately claim that description. His chief desire is to emigrate to Israel, where his grandparents are buried and, perhaps not incidentally, he’d be able to put some distance between himself and the Feds.

The one-man play “Lansky” visits Meyer Lansky many years after he helped brainstorm organized crime’s restructuring into the corporation-like Syndicate and confirmed his position alongside such pals as Charlie “Lucky” Luciano. As portrayed by Mike Burstyn, he is an affable joker and storyteller, but in this guest production at the Odyssey Theatre he doesn’t reveal much that couldn’t be learned from his Wikipedia entry.

The script by Richard Krevolin and Joseph Bologna plops Lansky at a Miami delicatessen, only to have him wander from his table and break the fourth wall to interact with the audience. In a series of nosh-time encounters through the 1970s, Burstyn makes the aging gangster so smilingly gregarious that you can almost ignore the shiver of wariness raised when he holds his palms up for inspection and, qualifying his words just a bit too carefully, says: “I have never murdered anyone with these hands.”

As Burstyn juggles personas to re-create remembered conversations, J. Kent Inasy’s lighting changes intensity and long-ago locales are suggested by old-fashioned silhouettes projected onto a wall left blank by Tom Buderwitz’s cheery deli set. The effect, under Bologna’s direction, is subtle but artful.

Still, the format’s static nature becomes ever more wearing as Lansky turns out to be a mere name-dropper and teller of half-stories, devoid of juicy details.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“Lansky,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Ends July 29. $35 and $55. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Exploring what is ‘normal’ exactly

Agreeable grit grounds the purple whimsy of “Picasso Does My Maps” at the Pico Playhouse. Carter W. Lewis’ ambitious dark comedy about what constitutes normality scores by studying the need for connection in even the most disenfranchised pathology.

Case in point: Harbor (J. Trevor Davis), an agoraphobic artist operating from within designer Ian Garrett’s picture frame set. Commissioned to sketch patricidal Hank (Chas Mitchell), a British emigre occupying the park bench that faces his window, Harbor becomes fixated on neighbor Anna (Andrea Lee Davis), a narcoleptic dancer.

Smudging this equivocal romance is public defender Gayton (Mark Salamon), Harbor’s childhood friend/brother-in-law and punching bag for Harbor’s unseen sister. Concurrently, gruff Hank copes with Parker (Jessica D. Stone), an eerily perspicacious orphan, as distracted Mother (Katharine Phillips Moser) acts as unofficial art guide and unifying simile.

It’s a collegiate premise, John Guare-lite, yet there’s originality at play. Faced with the gawky precocity of the writing, director Lisa Guzman and her able Vox Humana forces address its quirky symbolism with droll, light-fingered gravity -- and reel us in by doing so. The designs are flavorful, particularly Austin R. Smith’s precise lighting, and Guzman’s actors inhabit the archetypes with delicate elan.

J. Trevor Davis and Andrea Lee Davis, amusingly attuning their first date through a cat door to Bob Blackburn’s witty sound design, have endearing loopy chemistry. Mitchell’s sage and Stone’s urchin avoid overstatement, while Moser brings arresting tints to her maternal figure. Salamon is remarkable as agitated Gayton, his climactic entrance in designer Christine Cover Ferro’s pencil-studded costume a jolting coup. “Picasso” is hardly a masterpiece, but its sweet-spirited oddities prove ultimately involving.

-- D.C.N.

“Picasso Does My Maps,” Pico Playhouse, 10508 W. Pico Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. $20. (323) 769-5794. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Hamlet’ is missing a social order

Undaunted by the challenges of an emotionally charged setting, Tall Blonde Productions chose “Hamlet” to initiate its series of Shakespeare plays presented in partnership with Hollywood Forever Cemetery, a locale enjoying a trendy afterlife as a hipster event magnet.

Credit director Brianna Lee Johnson and her youthful, energetic troupe for inventive use of the site’s rich architecture and landscaping in their environmental staging. The viewing area is a roped-off, picnic-friendly lawn in the middle of a gently sloping hollow. Though the audience faces the visual centerpiece -- massive torch-lighted stone steps ascending to a pair of thrones -- the action spills out on all sides to make for a truly immersive experience.

Particularly effective elements include a freshly dug hillside grave from which the gravediggers emerge for their banter. A reflecting pool between the stage and audience affords a harrowing drowning scene for Sarah Utterback’s Ophelia.

Opening the piece with due solemnity, the cast files through the audience in silent procession to an imposing mausoleum at the rear, presumably the resting place of the recently deceased King of Denmark.

Alas, once the dialogue gets underway it quickly becomes apparent that it’s the scansion that lies buried here. There’s the rub -- far less effort has been expended on the text than the setting, and words without thought never to heaven go.

The problems run deeper than mere meter -- at times the enthusiastic readings awkwardly violate the play’s social hierarchy. Dean Chekvala’s far-from-melancholy Prince Hamlet frolics on the grass with low-level courtiers Rosencrantz (Ryan Pfeiffer) and Guildenstern (Eric Hunicutt) as if they were peers. When he instructs the Players how to stage his theatrical mousetrap, he sounds more like Mickey Rooney rallying his pals to “put on a show” than a grieving son out to catch the conscience of the usurping uncle (York Griffith) who murdered his father. For that matter, Griffith’s Claudius, Katharine Brandt’s Gertrude and Sean Sellars’ Polonius are distractingly close to Hamlet’s age.

Given the lack of mature, classically trained actors, the need for nuance-destroying shouting to overcome physical distance and spatial acoustics, and the overhead aircraft intermittently drowning out all dialogue, the emphasis on a literal, insufficiently cut reading seems cruelly misplaced as we round the third hour.

-- Philip Brandes

“Hamlet,” Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8:30 p.m. Fridays and Sundays. Ends July 29. $20. (800) 595-4849 or www.shakespeareinthecemetery.com. Running time: 3 hours, 5 minutes.