STAGE REVIEW : One-Act Plays Open Up Closets Full of Fun and Fears

Among the one-act’s best features is its very playfulness. The stakes are usually lower than with a full-length work--you almost always expect a compressed one-act to move to an experimental beat, or at least have an unpredictably individual edge--and the writer often approaches it gleefully as a blank check for revealing closeted thoughts, dreams or gripes.

In “An Evening of One-Acts,” Rancho Santiago College’s Professional Actors Conservatory offers what amounts to some pretty playful (and personal) pieces by three important playwrights: one of the fathers of absurdist theater (Samuel Beckett) and two of contemporary drama’s top guns (Tom Stoppard and Christopher Durang).

The most fun is Durang’s “The Actor’s Nightmare.” The most biting is Stoppard’s “The Real Inspector Hound.” And the most unusual and tricky is Beckett’s series of skits lumped together under the heading of “Me To, Play: Beckett Dramaticules.”

Durang must have been an actor at one time and must have had some shaky stage moments. He sets up “The Actor’s Nightmare” (directed by John Dimita) as sort of a descent into performance hell for George Spelvin (Sean McDevitt), a nervous nobody who finds himself trapped in a revolving set of plays for which he is not prepared.

In fact, George does not even know how he got routed into this megillah of quickly shifting settings and even quicker shifting dialogue: He thinks he is dreaming and it is a nightmare all the way.

First he is dressed as Hamlet, but then he is trying to remember lines from Coward’s “Private Lives.” Then he is back as Hamlet, trying to recall just what country he is supposed to be in (couldn’t be England, must be Denmark, right?). Then he is in a scene from Beckett’s “Endgame.” Then it is back to Hamlet (it is Denmark, isn’t it?).

Anyone who has blanked out during a public presentation will identify with George’s terror.

Stoppard’s satirical “The Real Inspector Hound” (directed by Sheryl Donchey) also focuses on stage life, but his writing is less whimsical and more nervy. The target is, primarily, theater critics (ouch), with whom Stoppard undoubtedly has disagreed and pictures here as pompous, self-obsessed and ambitious to the point of being unethical and sex-mad.

The mincing reviewer Moon (Curtis Rhodes) and the gassy reviewer Birdboot (Danny Oberbeck) turn up to analyze the latest thriller, “The Real Inspector Hound,” and end up with more than they expected. Each becomes directly involved with the silly mystery--Birdboot has to deal with the complication of having had an affair with one of the actresses and wanting to have an affair with another, and Moon is accused of murdering the stiff lying under the sofa.

Birdboot and Moon eventually end up on stage, and two of the actors assume their roles as critics, pontificating to beat the band.

“The Real Inspector Hound” does seem interminable at times, but it also has Stoppard’s characteristically sophisticated and wry dialogue, which generates enough razored humor to keep things interesting. There’s something to be said for his criticism of critics too, especially the implied question of what justifies their role in the theater community.

Beckett’s gestural “Dramaticules” (directed by Robert Golden Leigh) lack anything specific to latch onto and are similar in style to his longer symbolic pieces, always cryptic and often comic. The humor is understated and arcane in “Come and Go,” the best of these brief visitations. In it, we find three atavistic-looking women (antebellum belles?) sitting under Scott Nielsen’s softly tantalizing lighting. We never see their faces, but through some abstract chatting and a few quiet movements learn that they share some secrets only to be guessed at.

The economical portraits from Denise Randol, Kelly Ford and Nancy Smeets are perfect for this atmospheric piece. The rest of the evening’s acting is also capable enough, with the steadiest efforts coming from McDevitt as the fuddled George in “The Actor’s Nightmare” and Rhodes and Oberbeck as the two critics who dominate “The Real Inspector Hound.”

Scott Nielsen’s sets, from the black minimalism of the Beckett pieces to the English manor interior of “The Real Inspector Hound,” create the right environments.

“AN EVENING OF ONE-ACTS”

The Professional Actors Conservatory of Rancho Santiago College presents one-act plays by Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard and Christopher Durang. Directed by Robert Golden Leigh, Sheryl Donchey and John Dimita. With Denise Randol, Kelly Ford, Nancy Smeets, Brent Metken, Mario Manno, Dan Conrad, Sean McDevitt, Lisa James, April Yee, Dawn DeSylvia, Connie Misen, Curtis Rhodes, Danny Oberbeck, Kathy Risk, Kevin Jones and Ceptembre Anthony. Sets and lighting by Scott Nielsen. Costumes by Renee Rebar. Performances (in repertory with the musical “Birds of Paradise”) today, Saturday, May 18 and May 20 at 8 p.m. at the Garden Grove Center, 13162 Newhope St., Garden Grove. Tickets: $4 and $5. (714) 667-3163 or (714) 638-3104.