‘WAITING’ IS A SHOW WITH A FUTURE

It’s true that Equity Waiver is on the verge of becoming a plaything of producers without a theatrical bone in their bodies, disposing their money on disposable shows.

It’s also true that Waiver still affords the opportunity for pieces like “Waiting” to exist.

This collaboration between Lee Garlington, Laura Hinton, Kathy Miller, Anne Elizabeth Ramsay, Jane Sibbett, Valerie Spencer and Dana Stevens is in the very best tradition of the work-in-progress (though it isn’t billed as such).

“Waiting” has been conceived with the right foot forward: Start with characters, flesh out their stories and the play will flow from there. It’s what made “The Fantasticks” such a wonderful show, and it’s what keeps “Waiting” grounded, even when it flies off the handle.

Start with five waitresses, serving up the last (New Year’s Eve) meal at Homebody’s, closing down for good. Angel (Sibbett) is a spacey performance artist into pyrotechnics. Hard-bitten Gail (Ramsay) keeps hearing her mom’s voice (Lee Garlington). Megan (Hinton) knows her boyfriend’s no good, but clings to him anyway. Kate (Miller) lives out her political and feminist convictions, even when it hurts. Frances (Stevens) is Broadway bound, with or without her boyfriend. It’s a kaleidoscope, fairly well focused on the present, even though it’s more likely that Frances would be headed for Hollywood. Like the show, these young women are all very ‘80s, full of contradictions, quirks and wit, with a long way to go. Little here seems forced to follow a trend, even though Robert Farthing’s red, white and black set looks ready to open to Melrose customers.

Maybe it takes a play by and about women to avoid the sexist turn, for “Waiting” never stoops for a cheap joke at a woman’s expense. How could it, as trauma from a rape plays prominently in the second act, and the victimization of women (not always by men) permeates the play.

Garlington, though, directs to keep things light, never grim. Her cast has clearly thought long and hard about their roles--Stevens and Miller look and sound especially right as innocents making the leap. There may be too many fantasy sequences (already, “Three Postcards” has fostered a cliche), but lighting designer Kathi O’Donohue has created some sharp images to complement the characters--this in one of the lowest-tech spaces in town.

“Waiting” doesn’t know what to do with its melodrama, but it’s undoubtedly a show with a future.

Performances are at the Carpet Compnay Stage, 5262 Pico Blvd. on Fridays through Mondays, 8 p.m., until April 27, (818) 509-8225 or (213) 932-9321.

‘MARSHALL: JUSTICE’

Fred Pinkard’s one-man show, “Thurgood Marshall: Justice,” is absolutely necessary in this era of Ed Meese. It’s a history lesson that definitively explains why it was law, and not bullets, that had to combat racism in America. Busing and quotas, Marshall infers, did not just come out of the blue.

That it is a history lesson, in the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s downstairs space, is also the problem. Pinkard gives us a good look at Marshall--being a young black at Harvard, lawyering for the NAACP in the rough days of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. An amazing struggle, but under Toni Sawyer’s direction, not told with much wit or aplomb. Pinkard relates to us like grandchildren by the fireside--soothing but not bracing.

Sometimes, very good men like Marshall turn dull when staged. Set coordinator Zatella Beatty hasn’t created a Supreme Court justice’s office with the rich atmosphere one would expect (Marshall, almost embarrassed, refers to the pomp of the job). Instead, there’s just a smallish desk, a couple of books on top and a little service table on the side. This is not the way to suggest a man’s humility.

Performances at 1089 N. Oxford Ave. run Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., through May 2, (213) 466-2916.

‘THE FIREBUGS’

Max Frisch, a Swiss architect who has written some remarkable novels, including “Stiller,” has also written several notable plays. Why don’t we hear from Frisch more? Don’t ask the Friends and Artists Theatre Ensemble, who are at least trying to quell the silence with their quasi-new wave staging of “The Firebugs” at their self-designed space on Vermont Ave.

Ensemble director/mentor Sal Romeo’s decision to choose “The Firebugs” as the young group’s maiden production took nerve and courage. Mordecai Gorelik’s translation of this comic entry in the Theatre of Menace ( before Pinter) combines the rhythmic tone of Greek tragedy, in the form of a chorus, with modern absurdism crashing headlong into domesticity. Warning: Handle with care.

Other decisions make you wince. Gottlieb Biederman may be an unsuspecting Everyman, oblivious to the threat posed by “firebugs” (Clay Wilcox and Robert Hallak) torching whole neighborhoods of a nameless city. But Tim Blough plays him so blandly, so short of the possibilities of self-reflexive black comedy, that the show loses its anchor. The casting, apparently limited to the ensemble, demands that young actors play far beyond their years--with sometimes college-level results.

Why oh why must we have yet another image of woman-as-whore (Barbara Mello’s chorus member, in an extremely skimpy Penthouse-style outfit) when it is not in Frisch’s original, not in Gorelik’s translation and serves no purpose but titillation? This mars what could have been truly adventurous theater. George Gizienski’s wild set and lights are effective.

Performances at 1761 N. Vermont Ave. are Fridays and Saturdays, 8:30 p.m. Runs indefinitely, (213) 664-0689.

‘THE HAZING OF MR. BARROW’

The plodding, unlikely “Hazing of Mr. Barrow,” at the McCadden Place Theatre, is pure first-draft theater. Psychiatrist Mark McVay’s friend, Mr. Barrow, has been viciously murdered by three disturbed men. So, even though he’s very upset by the act, McVay (Jack Stauffer) willingly interviews each of them-- without a guard in his office.

It only gets worse. McVay’s behavior is, to put it mildly, unethical. Perhaps playwright/director William Colombo has seen too many episodes of “L.A. Law,” but psychiatrists do not grill defendants, do not cuss them out and do not attempt to restage the crime. The trio (nasty Dean Coleman, big lug Tom McBride and pussycat Richmond Harrison) predictably feud with one another, and predictably have a Deep Dark Secret--itself painfully predictable. The acting and Ron Gillentine’s set need a second draft too.

Performances at 1157 N. McCadden Place are Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., until April 12, (213) 472-0310.