Saga of Stifled Lives in a Tacky Trailer Park

John Steppling has always directed or co-directed his own plays. Can they stand on their own?

The answer, emphatically given in this production of the playwright’s 1982 one-act “Neck,” at the Lost Studio, is yes. Granted director Rick Dean has worked with Steppling, he pushes his own buttons and colors his own moods in his staging.

“Neck” is set in a tacky but “spotless” trailer park, one of the many that polka-dot the Southern California landscape. Its inhabitants are Steppling’s cup of tea, pleased as punch with their minimal victories over a hard life, living on the hope that it might even get better. It never does.

A drunken weekend barbecue strips the thin skin of pretentiousness and hypocrisy from the guests. Director Dean gives a bravura performance as the owner of the park, whose sexual desires go beyond his simple-minded wife Vicki, engagingly crayon-colored by Patricia Mattick.

As barriers are destroyed amid the guzzling, souls are bared, including that of a blank-eyed newcomer, played by Cinda Jackson. But little is as affecting as the exploration of shy Wheeler’s (a touching reading by understudy Edward Rumann) fascination with the smooth neck of loud-mouthed Nelson (braggadocio made likable in Mickey Swanson’s performance).

Steppling’s territory is like a dreamscape, an effect aided by the tense nightmarish musical score by T. Baker Rowell, where the watcher is constantly taken aback by the author’s sudden images and a poetic line that pulls its pieces into an eventual whole. Dean knows and understands this, and proves that more directors should look into the wealth of worthy material in John Steppling’s catalogue.

At 130 S. La Brea Ave.; Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m.; ends July 15. $10; (213) 933-6944.

‘Riffs of Shakespeare’ at Theatre 6479

More poking of fun at the poor ol’ Bard? Why not? Certainly even Shakespeare would have to chuckle at Theatre 6470’s “Riffs of Shakespeare.” This gifted company does it with affection and, above all, with intelligence and style.

They’ll fool you by throwing in some really serious stuff at odd moments, but don’t be taken in. They follow Virginia Woolf’s touching feminist “Shakespeare’s Sister” with a hilarious dance version of “Romeo and Juliet” by Bobby and Sissy from the Lawrence Welk Show, including bubbles.

A rather straightforward scene from “Merry Wives” leads into a brilliant commingling of Juliet’s balcony scene lines with Tony’s fire-escape lyrics from “West Side Story.” Sonnets are sung to country-Western melodies and ‘50s rock rhythms. And they kill off all of Shakespeare’s 88 victims in 10 minutes.

It has the feel of Britain’s “Goon Show” and much of its delight. Maybe, like RSC’s “The Hollow Crown,” there are further editions waiting in the wings. Let’s hope so. These are righteous riffs.

At 6470 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; ends Saturday. $10; (213) 464-2124.

Controlling Influences at Theatre of Note

Theatre of Note is glancing back to its heyday in this evening of one-acts. The second, and most interesting of the two plays, was originally produced by the group in 1986.

The opener, a light comedy, just barely misses sitcom through its clever premise. Max is cooking dinner for his fiancee Doris, but his labors are interrupted by hack writer Ernie Penman. The twist is that, unknown to Max, his life follows a scenario written by Penman before Max was born, but his editor has mistakenly inserted eight blank pages in the saga, which leave it “Subject to Rewrites.”

Under Ed de’Leal’s energetic direction, John Storey and D.C. Douglas have a wonderful time as the hero and his author, and Stacey Havener, who looks like Marilyn Monroe while sounding like Jean Hagen, is delightful as the ditzy, undecided fiancee. It’s fluff but funny.

Much stronger and more arresting is the revival, “Waiting for the Rain,” by Stewart Skelton. The intense direction by Phil Ward and Dyanne DiRosario brings strong focus to a character study of a young man who has a habit of dragging home runaways from a neighboring park to alleviate his loneliness.

Mark McPherson gives an intricate, touching performance as the reclusive country boy Eric, but his running chatter (his visitor doesn’t speak) can’t seem to break down the emotional wall surrounding the woman he rescued from the rain. Esther Ives Williams has a good quirky edge as the silent lost soul who has her own ideas about how the evening will end.

At 1705 N. Kenmore Ave., Hollywood; Fridays & Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; ends July 22. $10; (213) 666-5550.

‘Acid Whorehouse’ at the Tamarind Theatre

Aaron Osborne’s “The Acid Whorehouse,” at the Tamarind Theatre, was “developed through workshop,” and once again this process has accomplished little.

The plot concerns a 1959 CIA experiment with LSD using the patrons of a San Francisco bordello. It’s an interesting idea that workshopping has reduced to comic-strip design and juvenile imagery. The art direction by Victor Bazaz and Justin Hibbard’s sound design provide some fleeting interest but the author’s direction and the silly performances obscure even those advantages. Self-indulgence is theater’s bete noire .

At 5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood; Thursdays through Fridays, 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 8 & 11 p.m.; ends July 21. $10; (213) 652-9746.

‘War Against Women’ at the Matrix Theatre

John Herman Shaner’s new play at the Matrix Theatre is “The War Against Women.” Not “Against Men” or “Between Men and Women.”

Shaner’s war is solely with women . Granted that his men are weak-kneed nudniks who probably think Masters and Johnson are baseball players, the women wage the war, and it’s a vicious, one-sided battle. But it’s not a play.

It all takes place at a karate dojo run by an Uberfuhrer female, where the confrontations occur between male-female couples in the class and the final exam is graded on how much the men whine and grovel.

The dialogue is little more than enumerations of grievances on both sides, and the cataloguing of outrages from press files that are as dramatically viable as the casualty lists in “Gone With the Wind.”

In this theatrically sterile ground a few performances manage to bloom. Jude Mussetter, Michael Anthony Shaner, Steve Franken, Patrick Montes and especially J.D. Cullum, bring vulnerability, charm and some life even to this clinical fact sheet.

At 7657 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; ends July 28. $15; (213) 852-1445.