‘Ourselves Alone’ at Tiffany; ‘Sweet Victory’ in Burbank; ‘Living Tofu’ at Harman Avenue; ‘Seven Days’ at the Strasberg Center; ‘ ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’ at Cast

Some subjects, like the ongoing battle between Catholics, Protestants and the British in Northern Ireland, are nearly uncontainable when put on stage. A few seasons ago, Ron Hutchinson hit upon one good strategy of containment with his brilliant Irish drama “Rat in the Skull.” It included keeping the cast of characters brief, and the approach to them telescoped.

Playwright Anne Devlin could use a few of Hutchinson’s methods for her sprawling play, “Ourselves Alone,” at the Tiffany Theatre. Her story becomes unhinged, not by a lack of skill, but by a flood of action, interpersonal involvements and a complex web of love and politics. Devlin’s problem is that rare, admirable one of overweening ambition, the virus that strikes playwrights with big ideas trying to wedge a novel into a theater setting.

In its finest moments, “Ourselves Alone” shimmers with a humanism that only an observant artist could bring to political affairs of the mind and heart. Two sisters, Frieda and Josie McCoy (Megan Mullaly and Dayle Kerry) have responded differently to the (mid-’80s) turmoil left in the wake of the death of 10 IRA hunger strikers. Frieda wants to sing, while Josie is an IRA courier, finding herself involved with a British agent for the IRA who may or may not be an informant (Gerrit Graham).

For her part, Frieda’s desires for John, a non-sectarian Workers Party Protestant (Francois Giroday), cause her hard-line IRA father (James Higgins) to disown her. In the end, Frieda is ready to disown Ireland itself.

Then there’s Frieda and Josie’s cousin, Gabriel (Jay Goren), who provides a safe house and has her own man problems. Devlin gives everyone a very full hearing, and it’s ultimately to the detriment of the play’s dramatic potential.

Donna Deitch’s pedestrian, fitfully paced production (with undistinguished lights by Steve Cuden and set by Renee Hoss) tends to make Devlin’s discursiveness rather long in the tooth. Some of her actors--Mullaly, Giroday and Goren in particular--interplay extremely well, while Graham goes in and out of focus and Kerry has a nightlong struggle with her dialect. In a play immersed in a set of relationships, such technical distractions are a burden on an already overburdened work.

At 8532 Sunset Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $17-$18.50; (213) 652-6165.

‘Sweet Victory’

For Clarence Darrow, the job of defending the Sweet family in a 1925 murder case proved to be a fitting coda to a brilliant career. But it was hardly comparable to Darrow’s previous assignment in the Scopes “Monkey” trial, which later inspired Lawrence and Lee’s “Inherit The Wind.”

In the same way, L. Nathaniel Wolfe’s new dramatization of the Sweet trial, “Sweet Victory,” at the Burbank Theatre Guild, is hardly “Inherit The Wind.” The evocation of injustice that should blow like a cold wind across the stage is barely felt. Allan Rich’s production stirs up small emotional flurries that subside almost as quickly as they begin.

Wolfe devotes the entire first act to the night the Sweets, an upper middle-class black family, combat a fierce white mob trying to run them out of the neighborhood. This pushes the court scenes into the second act, delaying the entrance of Darrow (director Rich).

The delay wouldn’t be a problem if the family were drawn interestingly. As it is, the family patriarch Dr. Sweet (Robert Do Qui) is simplistically pitted against a son refusing to go into medicine (Donalds Willis), and the women are mere background (Robin Braxton and Dayna Winston).

When the characters aren’t pure racists or victims--such as James Avery’s Otis and especially Rich himself--the actors convey the human, social and historical stakes. In the stereotyped roles, there’s much hand-wringing instead of performing.

At George Itzay Park, 1100 Clark Ave., Burbank, Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., until May 28. Tickets: $12.50; (818) 848-7791.

‘Living Tofu’

Although Cold Tofu bills itself as “the first Asian American improvisational group,” this usually bright and spirited team of comics is actually multicultural: Jim Macnerland often plays the neurotic white guy in the skits and improvs, and Geoff Rivas covers a wide range, from Geraldo Rivera to punning Shakespeare.

Their new show, “Living Tofu,” at the Harman Avenue Theatre, takes fine advantage of the cultural diversity. Rivas’ Geraldo, for instance, interviews a panel of “trans-ethnics”--people trapped in the bodies of other ethnic groups--while another skit spoofs karate with American icons.

The improvs actually gain a second wind rather than run out of breath, but it’s the scripted skits that stand out under Andy Goldberg’s direction. Amy Hill’s hopeless Japanese pop singer, Denice Kumagai’s harried housewife, June K. Lu’s cleaning woman pressed into service as a TV cook and Joey Miyashima’s “Secret Asian Man” are all sharp satirical portraits.

At 522 N. La Brea Ave., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3:30 p.m., until May 14. Tickets: $14; (213) 734-4142.

‘Seven Days’

A mood of portentous, ritualized doom hovers over Marion Kodama Yue’s production of Lance Lane’s “Seven Days” at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Center. But like dark clouds that pass by and never bring the needed rain, the mood never transforms into something of palpable meaning.

Which is strange, since the play is meant to be about the victims of the Hiroshima bomb. A Japanese woman (Ryuko Wakabayashi) is both repelled by and attracted to a radiated American soldier (Richard Marcel). Then again, it’s never actually stated that the soldier is radiated--it can only be inferred from Marcel’s facial make-up.

Lane’s elliptical and poeticized text, accompanied by slow choreographed movements led by two dancers (Selina Pang and Rika Crosby), suggests themes of various states of recalled pain and unrequited love within a limbo-like environment. The speeches of an angel and devil (Jackson Yee and Kazumi Igeta) are in their own limbo, disconnected from the man and woman. There is poetry to be found within the shadow of the Bomb, but Lane’s approach becomes self-defeatingly obscure.

At 7936 Santa Monica Blvd., Mondays and Tuesdays, 8 p.m., until May 9. Tickets: $10; (213) 650-7777.

‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’

Jacobean tragedy with rock ‘n’ roll might seem a marriage made in heaven, but Robert A. Prior and Andrew K. Yeater’s ambitious “free” adaptation of John Ford’s “ ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore,” at the Cast Theatre, is a case of theatrical whimsy divorced from good sense.

Ford’s basics are all here--the incestuous affair between Annabella and Giovanni (Manjit Kapany and David Jahn), the depravity of the nobleman Soranzo (Dane Christopher), the schemings of Soranzo’s henchman, Vasques (Chris Spitler). J. Kent Inasy’s lights and Barbara Cox’s garish costumes stylize the play without breaking its integrity.

Other elements aren’t so helpful. The cast is young, very uneven, and--even with the experience of performing it at the Olio (where the show originally premiered)--still unsure with Yeater’s leaden score and Prior and Yeater’s lugubrious libretto. Since the Olio run, the few changes have been a mixed blessing. Jahn is passionate as the new Giovanni, and Tanya Boyd has one of the show’s best voices as the vengeful Hippolyta. But now, Yeater’s music runs through every scene--and renders much of the dialogue inaudible, even though cast members are body-miked.

At 800 N. El Centro Ave., Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., until May 28. Tickets: $15; (213) 462-0265.