‘Mrs. Cage’ Hits the Target as Urban Reality

“A middle-aged woman in a supermarket parking lot picked up a loose revolver and shot a younger woman shopper she didn’t know between the eyes in a bizarre murder yesterday. Mrs. Martin Cage, wife of the prominent criminal attorney, is being questioned by police.”

That’s what you might read in the newspapers. A dramatist’s imagination would leap to the police interrogation downtown. That’s where you find playwright-director Nancy Barr’s drama “Mrs. Cage” (at the Two Lights Studio in Santa Monica).

The production features an uncanny performance by Judith Weston as the upright, uptight wife who unravels her “sane” motive for the killing to a low-key lieutenant (the sensitive Charles Bouvier, the play’s only other character). Rarely is a theater piece so translucent--in the writing, the direction, the performances--that it can take a banal situation, in this case a crime of passion, and fill it with not only life but theatrical art.

The challenge is particularly treacherous here because the murder is recounted after the fact. We witness nothing but the woman’s confession, a cogent litany of her psychological and emotional state that begins coolly and concludes on a shattering fade-out, complete with a stunning visual effect by lighting designer Richard Hoyes.

A telling, expressionistic touch is the uncredited set design featuring dozens upon dozens of freshly ironed men’s dress shirts that adorn the entire rear wall of the stage. This image invests the woman’s story of her marriage with acute irony.

Weston’s verbal re-creation of the murder (and the unrelated shooting of a grocery-store box boy that triggers the tragedy) is strangely comical. It’s precisely the kind of metro gore we casually read about every day.

Writer Barr, who evokes a ripe sense of the unseen, svelte and priggish victim, is not an apologist for crazy behavior. This is not a knee-jerk liberal statement; it’s an observation. Mortality is seldom dramatized with a razor so sharp.

At 1755 Lincoln Blvd. (entrance at rear of building), Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m., indefinitely. $10. (213) 466-1767.

‘Lady’: A Throwback to the Golden Days

The revival at the Crossley Theatre of the 1954 Horton Foote drama, “The Traveling Lady,” is a classic instance of pristine production values turning a sow’s ear of a play into a small pearl.

Go back in time to the old sun parlor and side porch of a rural frame house (Mark Henderson’s set and Russell Pyle’s lighting convey loads of warmth). Watch the dim, brave heroine (the credibly naive Kristina Lankford) cope with her sap of an ex-jailbird husband (Thomas Hillman). See the stalwart, sensitive hero (a distinguished performance by Greg Martin) come to her rescue. Catch the village fruitcake (Brenda Ballard) being chased from yard to yard by her adult daughter (the brassy Rebecca Hayes).

More than anything, notice how actress Janet Raycraft, as the widowed woman who owns this patch of land, takes a subdued, pale role that blends into the porch furniture until you hardly notice her, and creates a textured performance out of a void. That’s acting.

Throw a bundle of flowers to director Robin Strand who, like a skillful interior decorator, transforms this cluttered farmhouse. Oh, those screened porches and swings. Where have they gone? This production brings back the glow--quite an advancement for the Actors Co-Op, whose previous shows were marked by didacticism.

At 1760 N. Gower Ave. (at rear of church grounds off LeBaig St.), Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2:30 p.m., through Oct. 14. $8-$10. (213) 964-3586.

Love on the Rocks at the Cast Theatre

The West Coast premiere of British playwright Nick Darke’s demonic comedy, “The Dead Monkey,” at the Cast Theatre, addresses the squalor of co-dependency.

The play, a curious drama of marital collapse, speaks to anyone who ever smashed his or her way through the shards of a relationship. Directed at a slightly crazed angle by Dani Minnick, the show has the skewered vision that has become an emblem of the Cast. It may be a “visiting production” (translation: a rental) but it fits the Cast ethos perfectly.

This is not an audience show but a numbing slant on a marriage racked by sloth, burnout and sexual abuse, told in the manner of characters who metaphorically are swimming underwater.

The setting is a tacky shack on a California beach (nicely evoked by art director Jim Barbaley’s wooden slates and Ken Booth’s lighting). The opening clue to a weird (albeit ostensibly happy) marriage is the cadaver on the kitchen table--the couple’s lamented pet monkey. Zoology will play a spooky symbolic role in this marital animal farm.

The wife and husband are disarmingly played by the tall, angular Annabel Brooks and John Diehl’s deceptively laid-back ex-surfer. Diehl joins the apes in an ending that is both horrific and dreamlike under Minnick’s precise direction. A minor and truly scary supporting role is Pat Cochran’s metallic, robot-like, wind-up veterinarian from the local zoo.

At 800 N. El Centro Ave., Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., through Oct. 25. $12. (213) 462-0265.

‘Lotto’ Provides a Lesson in Greed

Nick and Edna Stewart’s Ebony Showcase has been the home for black plays since 1949, and “Lotto,” written and directed by Cliff Roquemore, is squarely in sync with the Ebony’s broad-based, commercial tradition.

“Lotto” is a comedy about the perils of greed. A disgruntled family in Watts wins $20 million in the lottery and the family’s raid on the new-found cookie jar leads to misery as familial love takes a hike. Pretty basic stuff. There’s a softly amusing performance by Marvin Jones’ hanger-on and a raucous turn by Jessica Smith’s blind, crippled family aunt. Almost everyone else plays it over the top, especially Donovan Womack’s loud father.

Roquemore has written a workable script but hasn’t directed it well. The tone is relentlessly strident. That’s why the lanky, low-keyed Jones and, to a lesser extent, Marilyn Coleman’s sweet mother come off so well--they’re not directed like whirling tops.

The audience had a ball. But if the production does go on tour, as planned, Roquemore had better orchestrate the noise level and retune the engine.

At 4720 Washington Blvd., Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m., through Oct. 2 1 . $12.50. (213) 202-6639.

‘Women’: The Sting of Female WASPs

Four comedic actresses have collaborated in the creation and performance of “Women Who Judge Too Much” (subtitled “...and the Mothers who made them”) at Theatre/Theater.

The self-mocking title signals the brittle tone of many of the sketches, with such titles as “Virginal Pursuits,” “Critic Moms” and “Recipe for a Happy Marriage.” The production’s richest idea is that the characters are a minority: WASP women in the ‘90s.

The quartet--Julie Guilmette, Holly Haber, Judy Kain and Mary Preston--wear checkered aprons and dramatize their yearnings and struggles under the tight staging of Minda Burr. The staging is bright and polished, but there’s a frantic sameness to the two-act evening that tends to blur the edges. The material rarely cuts deep enough to leave a wicked scar.

At 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Fridays only, 8 p.m., through Oct. 26. $12. (213) 871-0210.