‘LOOSE ENDS’ CHRONICLES THE CHANGES OF THE 1970S

Michael Weller, as a chronicler of the ‘60s generation in “Loose Ends” at the Gnu Theatre, is about as fair-minded as one can be while remaining partisan.

He pokes fun at Paul and Susan (Jeff Seymour and Elizabeth Reilly) when they’re bumming around the hippie-populated South Seas just as much as when they’re throwing birthday parties in their Manhattan pad, nine years later. The difference is that in Manhattan, Weller’s observations are tinged with bitterness. Paul might laugh that once he was in the Peace Corps, but--we can hear Weller saying--at least it was something.

So this is one of those rare plays about that decade of changes--the ‘70s, not the ‘60s. “Loose Ends” is so methodical, so conscious of itself as a decade report, that we almost feel that it may have more anthropological than theatrical value in the end. A lot of types are captured: The aimless wanderlust (Diane Wade), her mystic patriarch (Ethan Selzer, dryly effective), new-age homesteaders (Erich Anderson and Holgie Forrester) and a gay magazine editor (Drew Pillsbury). Problem is, they rarely rise above types. They generally fall, like Wade’s Janice, from some personal ecstasy to disillusion, or just seem to be there to fill out the decade panorama. Weller’s world often feels like the GE Carousel of Progress, written by the staff of Rolling Stone.

The unclassifiable ones, like Selina (Maggie Han) or Paul’s go-getter brother Ben (Robert Gallo), are far more interesting, and Weller thankfully spends some time exploring their inner ticks--less with Selina than we’d like. She comes close to being Paul’s other woman, but she’s also cast as the couple’s go-between. This is worth a play by itself, but on this grand canvas, it’s just a subplot.

At center are Paul and Susan, slowly finding that their life together just doesn’t work for a million small reasons. Weller’s dialogue tells you that he’s been there. But while Reilly offers us a real woman in flux, Seymour’s Paul never truly changes. In that first scene on the beach in Bali, we can hear the cynic already coming through. It’s the wrong signal, since this is partly the story of a young man growing hardened to life. Seymour is also director and designer (a more ingenious set is hard to find this season), and his Paul shows the exhaustion.

Performances at 10426 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends May 18; (213) 466-1767.

‘MORE WARHIT’

The only thing Doug Warhit had to do to get laughs Sunday at the Beverly Hills Playhouse was walk out on stage and give them a deadpan stare for a moment. “More Warhit” gets howls before he utters a word.

The moment wasn’t that funny--the moments following were, so it was simply a case of his fans anticipating. That’s tough on a young comic, but Warhit seems to be up to the challenge. Whether he is a wimp challenging Ali in the ring or a kid who discovers that his real gift in life is quitting, Warhit (who writes all his material) invests his individuals with subtle vulnerability and, often, a wry sense of irony.

The influence of Woody Allen, however, is dangerously upfront; Warhit simply has to find a fresh comic path through the well-explored terrain of the neurotic Jewish male. No skit should be a throwaway, but some of these are. And curiously, “More Warhit” doesn’t end with a bang, but with a whimpering little number called “My Daddy,” with back-up guitar (Ed Couppee) and singing (Barbara Hooper and Barbara Brussell).

More cutting--of some racial slurs, as well--and this show might travel far.

Performances at 254 S. Robertson Blvd., Sundays at noon. Runs indefinitely; (213) 874-3678.

‘CLARA’S PLAY’

The report on John Olive is that he’s a playwright with a future. A check in on director Ele Logan’s Commonwealth Theatre staging of “Clara’s Play,” part of his Minnesota trilogy, shows that the report is true. Olive, at least, has one up on most of his contemporaries: His humanity is at least at a level with his technique.

When a Norwegian immigrant named Sverre (James Oden Hatch) lands on the doorstep of Clara O’Keefe’s (Logan) decaying farmhouse, he thinks he’s come just to repair the roof, do some woodwork, patch up things here and there.

The word in town was that old Clara needed it. The word he didn’t get was that the town had been bilking Clara out of her possessions for years, to the point that all she had left was a leaky roof, some memories of her father, and a plot of neglected land.

Sverre slowly uncovers the truth, but what the play mostly deals with is his coming to terms with Clara, and her own acceptance of a past that is gone. There’s a charm in their conflict: He wants to fight off all urges to do any farming, but Clara has a way of breaking down all the defenses.

Eventually, Clara dies and Sverre moves on. Olive has, at this point, worked over their spats and the rest to the point where he can go no further. A sense of claustrophobia settles over this play that is not intentional, and though we hate to see Clara fade away (Logan gives her verve and genuine charm), we can see that the play has little more to offer than a portrait of unlikely friendship.

Hatch’s Sverre injects some bright, humorous colors (Sverre’s type is cutest when he’s angry), and David Coleman’s compromised priest is outstanding, but this can’t hide some real concerns. Would he knowingly leave Clara for dead in a rocking chair?

Dave Robinson’s technically spartan lights work wonderfully, and his farmhouse puts us thoroughly in Clara’s world, down to a water pump that works.

Performances at 540 S. Commonwealth Ave., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends May 17; (213) 385-1341 or 385-1389.

‘RANK’ AT BOYD ST.

“Rank” informs us that Pentagon generals are crazies who refuse to grow up and not invade Nicaragua; that Nixon thought he was a brilliant schemer to the end; that single men with nothing else to do might end up shooting people. Don’t go to “Rank,” at the Boyd Street Theatre, expecting political theater with original thinking.

Jack Slater and Ed Harris’ “The Right Brothers,” about the single men (Slater and Robert Winley) and their holdup attempt, is sub-Shepard male ritual with exchanges in which the word uh is one of the deeper utterances.

Slater’s “Plan Your Parade Before You Invade” tries for the tone of a political cartoon--the generals’ uniforms do for war toys what Carmen Miranda did for bananas--but director Paul Silverman lets John Apicella and John Achorn shamelessly overact with no comic depth. Their performances, and the skit’s message, are obvious in a matter of moments. The scene goes on much, much longer.

Both of these crosscut, film style, with the third piece, titled “Everybody’s Doing It,” taken directly (with minimal editing) from Nixon’s Watergate tapes with advisers. Dan Lorge isn’t verbally up to it as Nixon, but David Katims as the “Presidential Advisor”--a ringer for John Dean--is utterly focused and aware of every nuance. He is like nothing else in the evening.

Performances at 301 N. Boyd St. Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Ends May 31; (213) 629-2205.