SAVING THE RANCH

M ooo! , and make room for Elizabeth Diggs’ “American Beef,” premiering Friday at the International City Theatre in Long Beach. The story revolves around eight Midwesterners, each with a very strong attachment to their ranch land--and waging a losing battle against government interference.

“It’s similar to those losing-the-farm stories, but not the same,” said the New York-based playwright whose works include the award-winning “Close Ties” and “Goodbye Freddy.” “A ranch is very different from a farm. The people are different, the work is different. You can get by on less, raising cattle. All you need is a little bit of land and cattle that produce calves every year.

“The play has to do with the end of grazing these cattle on the open range. Some ranchers are still doing it, but land prices have risen so much that to continue becomes ludicrous. A rancher can make a hundred times (the income) if he sells the land and invests the money--compared to what he’d make off the cattle. But the people who are doing it love it. Plus there’s that whole romantic myth of the West: cows and cowboys, that independent, free spirit.”

Jules Aaron directs.

Why “Macbeth?”

“It’s very visual. It’s topical. It’s Jacobean in emphasis; there’s a body at the end. It’s tragedy in large proportions,” said Dominic Hoffman, who’s mounting the work at Stages (opening Thursday). “And it’s about power, ambition, the aftermath of suggestion of gain.

“It’s a simple story--and we’re using a very specific, very clean style,” added the actor/director who appeared in Stages’ 1985 production of “Leonce and Lena.” “And I’m not just doing the play. One should always present people with a theatrical event. Sometimes you’ll soar, sometimes you won’t. But it’ll be a great fall--or a great achievement. I’ve seen (stagings of) this play all over the world and I’ve never seen one that worked: either there wasn’t enough style or it was too naturalistic.”

One of Hoffman’s choices includes an all-black cast. “When people ask me ‘Why?’ I say, ‘Would you ask me that if it were all-white?’ But, yes, it was a conscious choice, partly having to do with always being at auditions with so many black actors, talented enough to play the lead (but invariably cast in a lesser role). We’re not used to mixing it up on stage. Whenever you see that, it’s usually being done for effect--as opposed to the common denominator of humanity.”

LATE CUES: Also opening this week: The California Youth Theatre presents “GIRF,” a musical composed by the CYT Lab. It opens Thursday at the Inner City Cultural Center. . . . More about family-farm troubles: Patrick Tovatt’s “Husbandry” opens Saturday at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. . . . Also at the Playhouse (at the matinee) are two one-acts: John Herzfeld’s “Blueberry Mountain” and Douglas Lane’s “The Key.” Deborah Dalton directs.

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: Lee Blessing’s “A Walk in the Woods,” about the encounter of a Soviet and an American arms negotiator (played by Michael Constantine and Lawrence Pressman, respectively) opened recently at the La Jolla Playhouse.

The Times’ Sylvie Drake described the play as “an argument in four scenes with an intermission--rather like life. It’s a form of subtle despair brushed with hope and buoyed with humor. It’s human and thankless. Its dialogue shimmers, bristles with earthiness and surprise, a balance that rescues it from the formulaic oblivion where two-character plays are so often remanded (even if it’s not entirely spared some predictability). And of course, it’s also topical--as topical as the Iran/ contra hearings.”

A mixed reaction from Richard Stayton in the Herald-Examiner: “Blessing doesn’t address the horrors of nuclear holocaust directly. Nor does he bury his play under an avalanche of statistics and nuke-speak terminology. . . . But Blessing’s balancing act between comedy and pathos fails to convince us, because his characters aren’t convincing as diplomats. The bottom line is that neither reveals the shrewd political cunning necessary to survive bureaucratic office wars. No KGB or CIA paranoia ever haunts these woods.”

And from Jeff Rubio in the Orange County Register: “Inspired by the 1982 Geneva arms talk between Soviet negotiator Yuli Kvitsinsky and American Paul Nitze, ‘A Walk in the Woods’ is a political play that doesn’t get bogged down in politics. Politics is about people, this play says. And from the start, Blessing seeks to touch us on a human level, primarily through the irresponsible charm of the seasoned Soviet. . . . The thoroughly first-rate production that Blessing’s emotionally resonant play gets at La Jolla augments his story at every turn.”