Theater review: ‘A Hatful of Rain’ at Skylight Theatre*

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Back in 1956, Michael V. Gazzo’s ‘A Hatful of Rain’ broke new ground with its open depiction of drug addiction -- a subject so buried that even addressing it had shock value. Nowadays, though, not so much.

Gazzo’s morality tale of a war-hero-turned-junkie trying to hide his condition is, frankly, dated and steeped in melodrama, but its ample ensemble-performance opportunities have obvious appeal for a combined actor-training and production program like the Katselas Theatre Company (founded by the late acting teacher Milton Katselas). Seizing those opportunities with a dual-cast staging at the Skylight Theatre, director Dean Kreyling sparks lively emotional fireworks but hasn’t sealed the deal on the relevance of a topic that’s received far grittier and more realistic treatment.

The play draws both its dramatic strengths and limitations from being set in a more innocent time, as the clueless members of a Lower East Side Italian American family try to cope with a problem beyond their comprehension. After acquiring a morphine
addiction during his yearlong recovery in a veterans hospital, Johnny (Chris Devlin at the reviewed performance, alternating with Tommy Villafranca) is unable to resume a normal life. His neglected wife, Celia (Alicia Klein, Tania Gonzalez), attributes his unexplained disappearances to an extramarital affair. His father (Joseph Cardinale) is too self-absorbed to see past his own failed business ambitions. Only Johnny’s black sheep younger brother (Ludwig Manukian, Gadi Erel), a streetwise bartender, knows the truth and faces the doubly thankless challenges of paying off Johnny’s dealer (an insufficiently menacing Jeremy Radin) and keeping his own feelings for Celia in check.

These complications make for some flamboyant theatrics (mostly shouting matches punctuated by torrid clutching), but inherent credibility problems remain unsolved. Johnny is up to two fixes a day before anyone notices there’s a problem. Instead of the complexities that go with having feelings for more than one person, Celia’s romantic loyalties seem to switch between the brothers depending on which one happens to be around. And the resolution is so over the top it borders on the unintended self-parody of ‘Reefer Madness’ territory.

-- Philip Brandes

‘A Hatful of Rain,’ Skylight Theatre, 1816 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 23. $25. (310) 358-9936. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

*An earlier version of this review had the incorrect first name for the playwright.

Caption: Alicia Klein and Ludwig Manukian in ‘A Hatful of Rain.’ Credit: Ed Krieger