‘Inconceivable’ Ponders Pregnant Question

To reproduce or not to reproduce? That’s the dilemma facing a contemporary couple in Joseph Krawczyk’s four-character comedy-drama “Inconceivable,” opening Saturday at the Main Stage Theatre in Studio City.

“It’s about a couple in their late ‘30s, who’ve built a strong marriage--and now have to deal with new, separate issues in their lives,” said director Deborah LaVine. “Each has different needs, which are taking them down paths that sometimes don’t converge.

“They must find a way to reconnect: not to submit to fear and give up, make the marriage disposable. A lot of people do that when they get frightened.”

The director, whose local credits include “The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs,” “Don Juan Comes Back From the War” and “Distant Fires,” claims a “magic marriage” of her own--but says that the play’s theme hit close to home.

“Peer pressure made me face it,” she said of the conception question. “And though that’s the issue here, it’s not a judgmental thing: ‘People who are mature have babies.’ What really touches me about the play is that we’re used to seeing troubled relationships--and this is a good marriage, a long marriage. But at the same time, I’m trying to de-romanticize the notion that people can ‘have it all’ without sweat. Everything has a price.”

‘Amphitryon 38’

It’s back to Roman times for the seldom-produced “Amphitryon 38,” Jean Giraudoux’s version of Plautus’ comedy. S. N. Behrman’s translation opens Friday at Group Repertory Theatre.

“There’ve been a lot of versions,” said director Lonnie Chapman. “Giraudoux’s was the 38th version--that’s what the 38 stands for.” Chapman himself first read the play in college many years ago (“and it was a little over my head”), but when he re-read it two years ago “it knocked me out. It’s a bedroom farce, but it’s also one of the few comedies--along with Shaw and Coward--that I call witty.

“Although it was written in Roman times, it’s very modern,” he said. “And it’s very timely--about how we look at man’s relationship with religion and the gods.” As for the plot: “Jupiter and Mars come down from heaven, where they devise a way for Jupiter to win Amphitryon’s wife, Alkmena. But Alkmena is faithful; Jupiter can’t get to first base. So he disguises himself as Amphitryon--which is something gods can do.”

But when Alkmena finds out. . . .

Vietnam Revisited

“The story traces my character’s experiences from the time he gets to Vietnam,” said Craig Sheffer who heads the cast of “G. R. Point,” an eight-character drama opening Friday at the Callboard Theatre. “Till the time he leaves, the men who have to support and depend on each other to survive, find new ways to relate, relieve their basic drives--and get out of reality, a much harsher reality than they’ve ever known before. It’s not as much a political piece as it is about the men’s journey, people depending on each other--and the journey from darkness to light.”

Critical Cross Fire

“80 Days,” a musical adaptation (by Ray Davies and Snoo Wilson) of Jules Verne’s 1872 “Around the World in Eighty Days” recently opened at the La Jolla Playhouse. Des McAnuff directs.

Said Dan Sullivan in The Times: “Davies’ songs are fun. That is, the tunes are. He throws in rock, ragtime and Indian ragas , and the eclecticism works as amusingly as Douglas W. Schmidt’s setting and Susan Hilferty’s costumes. Musically, the man knows what’s up. (However) his lyrics are awful.”

From David Ehrenstein in the Herald Examiner: “The ‘concept’ that keeps ’80 Days’ moving might be described as neo-Sondheimian. Instead of spending ‘Sunday in the Park with George,’ we’re ‘Locked up in the Study with Jules.’ ”

Said Welton Jones in the San Diego Union: “(It’s) a dizzy, complex, glittering pageant of stage craft, an encyclopedia of tricks and gimmicks, a fancy mechanical marvel in the spirit of Verne’s own baroque sense of technology.”

Said Daryl H. Miller in the Daily News: “A promising idea for a musical play gets lost somewhere in its journey around the world in ’80 Days.’ . . . Unfortunately, the show’s creators mire their inspired ideas in some high-blown concepts that just don’t work.”

Said the San Diego Tribune’s Bill Hagen: “There are in ’80 Days’ the makings of a first-rate musical, one likely destined for life after La Jolla. A little more music, perhaps, a little less verbosity, a little judicious trimming. It’s good now. It’s probably going to get better.”

Last, from Thomas O’Connor in the Orange County Register: “Too often, there’s a nagging sense of repetition, of marking time, of pleasantry when only irony and wit will do. (Yet) for all the material’s problems, McAnuff’s production is a sizzler, full of spark, whimsy and bold design.”