‘Comedy of Errors’: Fun in Silent-Film Style

Since no one seems to be doing Shakespeare in the original specified setting anymore, it isn’t surprising that John Bouchard’s Occidental Theatre Festival production of “Comedy of Errors” at the Remsen Bird outdoor amphitheater places the action in “Ephesus, N.Y.” The fairly untampered text, though, is still placed in Ephesus, Greece. We’re expected to believe that a New York-style city is ruled by a Duke who has the power to execute an out-of-towner who, before arriving here, “wandered through Asia.”

It’s one thing to turn “Errors” into a circus act, as the Goodman Theatre and the Flying Karamazov Brothers have done. That was pure American energy, but universal.

Broussard’s show has its own American energy--the style is silent film comedy--but too specific a setting. What’s interesting is how the style, and the sheer bravura of Shakespeare’s plot, eventually gets us past the conceptual problems.

Much of this, to be sure, is the actors’ doing. The twinning of masters Antipholus and slaves Dromio--which is what sets the cops and kin and business associates into a tizzy--works better for Dromios Ken Clement and Matt Foyer than it does for the less-identical Antipholuses, Jonathan Putnam and Jamie Angell. But all four exhibit the same sharp sense of turning danger into comedy that the silent masters, Keaton and Chaplin, did. (For unneeded emphasis, a Chaplin-type figure wanders in and out of the action.)

The other emotional pole is Deanne Lorette’s complaining Adriana and her wiser sister (Karen Musich), whose differing views of marriage keep the show from being pure slapstick and link it with Occidental’s staging of Shaw’s “Getting Married,” next door at the Keck Theatre. Both shows are slim plays by geniuses, and both prove that good actors can make something of them.

At 1600 Campus Road, Occidental College, Eagle Rock. Call for August schedule. Ends Sept. 2. $10-$15; (213) 259-2772.

Aliens Look at ‘80s in ‘Lost Formicans’

“This isn’t a play!” That was the judgment of one audience member at the Alliance Repertory Company production of Constance Congdon’s “Tales of the Lost Formicans.” He wanted a story, a shape . To his ears, director Connie Evans’ show sounded improvised.

That’s the illusion Congdon builds into her work, which intends to be a view of suburban humans mired in ‘80s turmoils, seen through the eyes of alien visitors. Given that framework, anything is going to seem a bit odd.

So there is a shape here--visually collage-like, aurally like tuning in and out of a radio station--and Evans’ cast is basically aware of it. But our theatergoer’s instincts were right: “Formicans” isn’t the play Congdon wants it to be.

Her project is like a huge research center erected to study the mating habits of tsetse flies. With a flurry of elaborate stage devices--quick-cut scenes, an alien narrator, time dilation (including the characters talking backward as the alien hits the reverse button)--Congdon wastes it all on worthless subjects. Whether it’s beleaguered Cathy (Nancy Locke), her ratty son (Steve Miller), her vacant mother (Paula Marchese), her ultra-vacant father (David Hayman), her amoral sister (Minda Burr) or a guy who knows the aliens are here (Dean Coleman), they are stick figures that no anthropologically-oriented space visitor would bother with.

Congdon isn’t even consistent with her shape. As the play winds down, the narrator (Gwendolyn Brown, who must give a letter-perfect delivery but doesn’t) fades away along with the devices.

Is this an alien’s point-of-view, or not? Evans’ actors can’t--nor should be expected to--solve the problems, but their fun with the text is infectious.

At 3204 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., until Aug. 25. $12; (818) 566-7935.

‘Cymbeline’ Played on Storefront Stage

Actors say they’ll do anything to play Shakespeare. For proof, look no further than the Chandler Studio, a tiny storefront stage tucked in an easily missed mini-mall. The Shakespeare on hand isn’t something small-scale and easy-to-fit like “Hamlet;” it’s that enormous romantic epic, “Cymbeline.”

Not just any “Cymbeline,” but “Cymbeline” with Lu Leonard as the Queen and music by Jerome Kern. What’s going on here?

Very little, as it turns out. Director Michael Holmes’ cast is getting more out of this venture than the audience: It’s their chance to do Shakespeare, even on a postage stamp-size stage. From out front, though, the show comes dangerously close to looking like community theater with pros.

Leonard looks terribly uncomfortable, forcing every gesture, underlining every statement so we can’t miss that she’s a plotting monstress. John Fiedler is a victim of dreadful miscasting as Cymbeline (imagine Elisha Cook Jr. as a king, and you get the idea). There is some conviction here--Cheri Roberts’ forthright Imogen, Holmes’ virile Belarius--but none of the stage magic any “Cymbeline” needs to get us over the play’s patent absurdities. Not even Jerome Kern can save this one.

At 12443 Chandler Blvd., North Hollywood, Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., until Sept. 16. $5 donation; (818) 780-6516.

‘Fang People’ Has Laugh at TV’s Expense

TV’s invasion of theater continues. The latest incursion is at Theatre of N.O.T.E., but the results aren’t nearly as brain-dead as what commonly appears on the tube. That is because “Lives of the Neo-Modern Fang People,” planned as an ongoing series with a new episode each month, is partially inspired by “Twin Peaks.” With both Grubb Graebner’s play and the David Lynch/Mark Frost mega-soap, we see stock characters, but reflected through a funhouse mirror.

Like “Peaks,” Graebner’s work is set in a West--specifically, Albuquerque--that is also still Wild. Unlike Lynch’s weird Washingtonians with their neo-Freudian recesses, these fang people (with nary a vampire in sight) are pure cartoons, though with a similar capacity for cheating on spouses, sudden violence and a talent for getting seriously off the wall.

The main thing is that the first episode directed by Lisa Greenman, “The Hour of the Wolf,” is funnier than not. (Were it indeed an hour, rather than 80 minutes; no amount of laughs relieves the theater’s stifling heat.)

If there’s a catalyst here, it’s the trial of Marcos (Patric Z) for murdering, then raping, an 80-year-old woman. Public defender Dekka (Hilary Hartman) is his attorney, dealing with a documentary filmmaker who wants to get in her pants (Stephen Molstead) and Marcos’ mother (Lamar Aguilar), whose litany of child beating is the show’s single but dumbfounding lapse in taste and judgment.

Dekka is married to Bob, a physicist (John Tolins). In the best tradition of torrid TV, they’re always with their lovers (Bob’s is Nanea Reeves’ Paula). Then there’s prosecuting DA Sharette (Karen Hott), involved with Toby (Doug Burch), Dekka’s doctor brother and trying to divorce her crazed Vietnam vet husband, Billy (Russell Smith), who’s up to his neck in bad drug deals.

The whole business is layered with a so-bad-it’s-good campiness and a generally keen acting style that lifts it above mere spoofing. Graebner could make “Lives” much, much stranger; with episodic theater, there’s always room to improve things. Meanwhile, the high points come from the actors, like Ed de’Leal’s wacko neighbor who’s turned crime watching into a 24-hour job.

At 1705 N. Kenmore Ave., on Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., until Sept. 17. $10; (213) 666-5550.