‘Weekend’ at Powerhouse; One-Acts at Theater of NOTE; ‘Men Die Sooner’ at Cast; ‘Playroom’ at Rapport

David and Doe have gathered the scattered remains of a far-flung flock to their home near Madison, Wis. It’s a stormy weekend in 1979 and the low rumble of thunder echoes through Kathleen Tolan’s “A Weekend Near Madison” at the Powerhouse Theater.

“Madison” is bound by nostalgia to its roots in the late ‘60s. Its characters are testimony to failed dreams and compromise, and ache with being thirtysomething.

Poor kids.

Tolan’s ideas are firm and her dialogue sings with honesty about her characters, but the play has the looseness of its period and its success in this production is due to its execution.

Director Andy Fickman knows the sound and soul of the play, hears its resonance and the zig-zag rhythms of its dialogue. His cast is in on the game too, hitting each mark in the music with unerring accuracy. They know how to make an ordinary play extraordinary.

Andrew Shaifer is intuitive in finding the soft spots in the character of David’s brother Jim, an art gallery assistant who wants to recapture a lost romance but not at the price he is given. David’s wife, Doe, is a network of hurt and hope in the performance of Jodi Kavanaugh. Joe Plewa as David and Jill Kiblinger as Jim’s ex, now enraptured with her folk-singing partner Samantha, echo the loss of earlier fire.

Where have all the flowers gone? To suburbia.

At 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica, Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., until Oct. 19. Tickets: $15; (213) 466-1767.

‘Palmdale’, ‘Arroyo Rep’ The Theater of NOTE is back with two one-acts of varying quality and interest.

The opener, “Palmdale,” is a slice of life about goings-on in the high desert. It’s as paper-thin as prosciutto. Cheryl Slean’s play, directed forthrightly by Marianne Simon, concerns Acey, a young woman played by the playwright, who has learned to read palms and wants to move to the big hamlet to follow her dream. The stock characters include an honestly romantic Chad Einbinder as her boyfriend Eddie, a delightfully rambunctious Shannon Pingrin as her tomboy sister Iris, and a well-defined mother played by Debora Roventini. Philip Sokoloff looks only uncomfortable as the traveling sucker Juan, who gets his palm read by way of practice.

More notable is the second half of the bill, Grubb Graebner’s “Arroyo Repo.” John Callahan and Doug Burch portray scroungy desert rats out to make a killing, in a play that’s a Sam Shepard clone, saved by Bob Kip’s vaudevillian direction and the wild and crazy performances of its two protagonists.

They dredge up all sorts of detritus, including tires and a free-wheeling wench, from a dangerous ditch near their shack. They also find great dollops of humor and insight about the human condition. The play has little to say but chuckles a lot (the TV doesn’t work but they watch it anyway), particularly in Burch’s inventive performance as the incorrigible Rave.

At 1761 N. Vermont Ave., Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m., through Oct. 5. Tickets: $12.50; (213) 664-0689.

‘Men Die Sooner’

Guys have a rough life. And statistics seem to back up the premise of Tom Cayler’s one-man performance piece “Men Die Sooner” at the Cast Theater--but why?

Cayler and his co-writers Kay Cummings (who also directed) and Clarice Marshall (who staged Cayler’s movement) have some explanations as they explore the life of a generic male from childhood to terminal panic.

Their stance is Benchley-esque and the lecture Cayler delivers is as spare and satirical as “The Treasurer’s Report.” When he steps away from the lecturer as his own exhibit No. 1, to check his heartbeat, to jog, to force his subject into an escalating cacophony of movement, each gesture and pose is as meaningful as the pat words of the lecturer.

It’s a thin piece, and short, but that very thinness is its strength and the root of its humor. And the charts (by Pier Voulkos) that the lecturer uses to help visualize his points are as funny in their loony abstraction as is the lecturer himself.

“Men don’t cry,” he says, on the way to heart attack and stroke (“Sauce Bernaise Syndrome”), but fortunately they can laugh at what fools these mortals be.

At 804 N. El Centro Ave., Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m., through Oct. 4. Tickets: $12; (213) 462-0265.

‘The Playroom’

Mary Drayton’s odd little play about a discomfitted Manhattan teen-ager who decides to kidnap her new stepsister has a lot of promise, but the period writing makes it look like “The Bad Seed Meets Corliss Archer” and the B-movie dialogue and B-movie direction by Gregory Black defeat most of the actors.

An attic room in New York’s Montana apartments is the focal point in Judy’s misfired attempt at getting attention. But it’s the only focal point in Theater Rapport’s misfired production of a mediocre play that doesn’t even come within shouting distance of its possibilities.

Phoebe Farber as the nasty kid who starts it all, and Greg Safel as her conniving boyfriend almost make their plot believable. But the rest of the company unravels the loose threads of this dated fabric.

At 1277 N. Wilton Place, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., through Oct. 13. Tickets: $14; (213) 285-8170.