‘Article XXIV’ at CalRep Dramatizes an American Mutiny

Shipboard insurrections would seem ripe for the stage, but there’s surprisingly little dramatic literature on the subject. Now comes Howard Burman’s “Article XXIV” at CalRep in Long Beach, which dramatizes the long-forgotten and scandalous execution of three American sailors aboard the U.S. brig-of-war Somers during a near-mutinous Navy training mission in 1842.

Like “The Execution of Private Slovik,” this is a fact-based yarn about an appalling miscarriage of military justice. With its implications of a cover-up, the play has uneasy resonances.

The production’s provocative point is that the United States, which was looking for an excuse to build up its peacetime Navy, secretly engineered the climate for a mutiny in order to get rebellious sailors to fire on a British ship and goad the country into war with the English.

All this is exciting history, and playwright Burman, who is artistic producing director at CalRep, tries hard to pump salt spray and sea air into the drama. But, unlike CalRep’s other military drama, the burnished and just-closed “Breaker Morant,” this one lacks urgency.

“Article XXIV” is ambitious in its production values and its dramatic structure, but the language is too verbose and formal to set off the necessary sparks.

A huge distancing factor is that we are twice removed from the clash aboard the Somers--by a first-person narrator and by an ongoing murder inquiry of the ship’s commander (the effectively stubborn Ashley Carr). These framing devices constantly pull us off the ship, interfere with characterization and deaden the action.

Director Ronald Allan-Lindblom’s staging is brisk but bloodless (the prow of the brig, for that matter, looks like Danish furniture instead of a gnarled ship). What redeems the show is actor Steve Brady as the articulate, bristling midshipman who can’t believe the commander would be so stupid as to hang him. He’s outstanding.

One of this rep company’s strengths is its permanent vocal coach, Jan Gist. She makes strong diction a byword at CalRep, and that’s a rare treat.

At the Cal State Long Beach Theater, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., on alternate play dates through May 12. Tickets: $8-$12. (213) 985-5526.

‘Norm, Ahmed’ Drama at St. Genesius Theatre

An Australian racial drama that is famous Down Under is making its U.S. debut at St. Genesius Theatre.

The Sydney Theatre Company has imported Alex Buzo’s “Norm and Ahmed,” a two-character, hourlong one-act that insidiously probes a blue-collar bloke’s prejudice against a Pakistani student. The show is well-produced and acted but the play crucially lacks a cathartic release, at least for American audiences who expect underdogs to fight back.

Viable dramatic conflict is missing. It’s fine to dramatize the universality of prejudice through the Aussie worker’s nasty insinuations, but it’s important to create suspense and tension. All we get from the Pakistani is urbanity, docility and wariness. Theatrically, it’s not enough. The victim’s naivete is so pathetic it’s grueling.

The action, accompanied by impressive sound and set design, is set on a murky industrial street where a clean-cut Pakistani (Anjul Nigam) is cajoled into a deceptively casual encounter with a coarse, overly friendly fellow (Douglas Hull, who also directed).

The actors are authentic and vocally rich, and the fear on the Pakistani’s part (Nigam’s body language says it all) is keenly felt. What’s not felt is an assertion on the Pakistani’s part, something , that galvanizes the play. The violent payoff, signaled from afar, is merely blunt. In sum: a curiosity piece, with colorful Aussie slang that speaks to us but doesn’t ignite.

At 1049 Havenhurst Drive, Fridays, 8 p.m., Saturdays, 7 and 9 p.m., indefinitely. Tickets: $10-$15. (213) 281-8333.

‘Shout and Twist’ Musical at the Odyssey Theatre

MTV visits the classics.

“Shout and Twist,” a brash musical comedy at the Odyssey that catapults Hamlet, Candide and Lady Macbeth into music-video voyagers for the ‘90s, teeters on the edge of inspiration before cracking up under its own weight.

The concept is wonderful. Our feckless trio is hurtled from literary limbo onto the music charts. They even become the Sex Pistols. And Tom Waits. The show starts cocky and fresh and then, through repetition and fragmentation, chokes itself to death.

The material needs a tougher director than Yevgeny Lanskoy, who seems indifferent to propulsion or momentum. Set-pieces prevail. It’s theater for concertgoers.

The production is an eclectic musical feast--with book, music and lyrics by Michael Butler and Johann Carlo, who also co-star as the sweet, lanky optimist Candide and the power-lusting Lady Macbeth (known as Lady M, in black bra and panties). A morose Axl Rose-type Hamlet is suicidally delicious under the blond wavy locks of Doug Hutchison.

But artless staging and overkill nip away at the show. There’s too much black in the design, too much sameness, too much meandering. The props--a piano on its side and a fridge that becomes a bathtub--enjoy a kind of Ernie Kovacs sense of inspiration.

This is a rental at the Odyssey, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Thursdays and Fridays, 8 p.m., Saturdays, 7 and 10 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., indefinitely. Tickets: $17-$21. (213) 477-2055.

‘Cupo Limitado’: Elevator Nightmare for Neurotics

Mexican playwright Tomas Urtusastegui’s elevator nightmare, “Cupo Limitado” (or “Limited Capacity), is a mercifully brief metaphor for neurotic behavior in overcrowded cities.

Eight people are trapped in an elevator for the hour-length duration of the play. There’s a power outage and an ending so blunt it’s maddening. There’s puking, resignation, animal violence.

Margarita Galban’s direction at the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts is appropriately compressed, but the production’s strident tone and the zoo-like ambience grow tiresome. The scrunched characters are visible through the elevator bars in a realistic set by designer Estela Scarlata.

The actors have no time to develop personalities. Maybe the Spanish-language version is better (the English translation is by Margarita Stocker). Attendance in Mexico City was reportedly standing room only (no pun intended).

At 421 N. Avenue 19, alternating in Spanish and English, Wednesdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 3 p.m., through March 25. Tickets: $9-$12. (213) 225-4044.

‘Pound of Flesh’ Portrays the Penned-Up Dogs’ Life

Theater’s finest canine characterization is Snoopy in the “Peanuts” adaptations. You long for ol’ Snoopy as you watch actors performing penned-in mutts in “Pound of Flesh” at the Robert Hartung Theatre.

Maybe this is a show that only obsessive dog lovers can understand. Doris Day might like it. Director Robert Schrock and playwright Richard Edson Maloy are attempting to create a fable-like comedy, it seems, in which a dog’s travails are human too.

Several male and female actors, talking English in regular street clothes, perform the dog roles. At least they don’t crawl or jump. But they keep reminding you of people. There’s a gay dog, too. There’s something stupefying about this production.

Kevin Christopher Lokey as a kindly, aging attendant of the animal shelter is the show’s pedigreed actor. It’s Lokey, not the dog actors, who makes you suspend disbelief.

At 6468 Santa Monica Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., through March 24. Tickets: $10 . (213) 962-0246.