O’Keefe Has a Feeling for ‘Shimmer’

John O’Keefe takes an unsettling trip home in “Shimmer,” a one-man play featuring the author, opening Thursday at the New Playwrights Foundation Theatre.

“It’s about two kids running away from an Iowa juvenile home in 1955,” said O’Keefe, 48, who just completed a critically acclaimed run of the piece in New York. “It’s about the nature of that place and friendship between the kids. It’s also about the language they have between them--and about a natural language that exists in the universe beyond us.”

Although acknowledging an autobiographical element, O’Keefe said, “This is not therapy theater. Forty to 50% is fiction, many of the characters are combined. I don’t care if it’s about me at all. I just used that because I have an interesting background. The personal stuff keeps it from being arty and abstract. And it’s very intense, written very tightly.

“Originally it was 70 pages; I cut it to 32,” said the San Francisco-based writer. “So it’s very lean. It’s also a lot about poetry, a sense of music and language, and the oral tradition. Being Irish-American, there’s a need to sing--not in song, but in the old sense of theater. The language is rich; it’s not meant to be self-indulgent and sentimental. It’s brutal but transcendental.”

For the author, too.

“If you write anything,” he said, “you’ve got to connect to it, and that’s painful. This is personal; it hits some tender spots. But I think tenderness is something you want to share. This is a kind piece, giving to the audience. There’s been such a glut of cold, tough, surly, nasty theater works lately. I think audiences are starved for real feelings.”

MOLLER SINGS: After two months off tending to a broken arm, Joyce Moller reprises her one-woman show, “Yiddishkeit,” which had been playing Sunday afternoons at the Tracy Roberts Theatre for more than a year.

“The theme is ‘Let’s keep Yiddish alive,’ ” said Moller of the piece, an hourlong collection of Yiddish stories (in English and Yiddish) that she researched and set to music. “I start with stories about Abraham and Moses, and end up in the present day with ‘Fairfax L’Chaim!’ I touch people in their hearts, where they haven’t been touched since their grandparents (sang to them).

“The Jewish seniors are very exciting theatergoers,” she added. “They love hearing their own history; they don’t get to hear it very often anymore. And the show’s not just about being Jewish, but American. Jews have a love affair with America--we’ve got a great life here. Even with all the tsuris , there’s a lot to celebrate. And I’m going to keep singing about it till the rest of the world knows.”

RACY LACE: Romance and erotica are the themes for this year’s Valentine’s benefit by Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. City Restaurant hosts the Tuesday event--with entertainment provided by El Vez (billed as “the Mexican Elvis”) and his backup singers Gladysita, Pricillita and Lisa Maria.

And on Saturday, LACE holds its annual party downtown; featured performers include Tim Bennett, Jane Cantillion, John Fleck, Les Mormons, Deborah Oliver and Syd Straw.

CRITICAL CROSS FIRE: Preparing for a statewide tour of “The Fox,” Van Nuys’ Back Alley Theatre is winding up its revival of the D. H. Lawrence novella that Allan Miller adapted and directed.

Said The Times’ Dan Sullivan: “It is a fine script, true to the stage. But Miller’s new production is a disappointment. . . . Transitions were scant, mood went out the window, and in some scenes the characters were actually jabbering at each other.”

In Drama-Logue, T. H. McCulloh agreed: “Miller has chosen to have his three actors rattling through their lines as though the bus is outside honking to take them to the next stop. The depth is gone, the subtext, the richness of the languid blossoming of the seeds of fear and distrust, are lost.”

Maryl Jo Fox of the L.A. Weekly pointed to the same problem: “Performed at breakneck speed here, Lawrence’s mesmerizing, crucial subtext is thinned to a TV-like efficiency, noisiness and mannerism. The performers seem almost afraid (or uncomprehending) of the story’s repressed sexuality and many-layered female friendship.”

In the Daily News, Tom Jacobs also complained about the speed, yet concluded: “It’s a provocative tale that works both on a metaphoric level and as drama of startling immediacy. Miller’s play is quite worthy of its source; it is nicely structured and full of thoughtful, literate dialogue.”

On the other hand, Variety’s Jane Lieberman found the pacing too slow: “The play, as is typical of Lawrence’s symbolic subtlety, takes a while to evolve, which can try one’s patience. . . . As adapter, Miller has naively presumed that the women’s lesbian-hinted relationship is only a substitute for the yearning of male flesh . . . Why revive this play at all? It seems a better forum might have been provided for these three talented performers.”

Finally, the B’nai B’rith Messenger’s Madeleine Shaner found “a lively, evocative production, psychologically intricate and physically powerful and secure in its performances. Detailed authenticity in the set, costumes, lighting and sound.”