STAGE REVIEW : Overwrought Decadence in ‘Lulu Plays’

Lulu, wanton, amoral, bewitching, has brought ruin to men for almost a century now in dramatic literature, opera and film. No wonder the Greeks invented Pandora. Her box bearing gifts of sex and death is irresistible.

The latest reconstruction of German playwright Frank Wedekind’s Lulu cycle (“Earth Spirit,” 1895 and “Pandora’s Box,” 1903) is an expressionistic farce, sensual and grotesque in equal measure, called “Lulu Plays.” The production, adapted and directed by Albert Sinkys, is grandiose but full of excesses in an overwrought West End guest production at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.

Lulu is a paradox, a flower girl-turned- femme fatale /murderess/prostitute-turned ultimate Jack-the-Ripper victim. She endures because her innocent sexuality is haunting. But her vulnerability and mystery, that power of the Muse, is missing in the two Lulus seen here.

That’s right. Two Lulus, deliciously pouty and vain, cavort and mingle among the rich in this Art Deco, pre-Fascist “Cabaret” of a Germany. The device is an inspired effort to dramatize the paradox of Lulu, and the character’s duality is starkly reflected in a towering on-stage dressing-room mirror.

The auburn-haired Marla Rubinoff suggests a raw, street-tough Eliza Doolittle-Lulu and brunette Sachi Parker conveys a pampered, reckless Cleopatra-Lulu who breathes money. Both dress alike, look alike and leave male and female corpses scattered in salons. Their legs are like swords. Among the more impressive victims, in a cast of 19, are D. Paul Thomas’ helpless rich lover and his artist son played with fawning elan by Joey Sagal).

What’s fun is how familiar this Lulu is to moviegoers. On one hand she’s the manipulative, dime-store con of the sexy Annette Bening in “The Grifters.” And in a wonderful salute to Louise Brooks’ definitive Lulu in G.W. Pabst’s classic 1928 silent German film, “Pandora’s Box,” Rubinoff and Parker sport shiny Dutch-boy wigs.

Also, catch that floppy pageboy cut of the svelte countess played with an erogenous lesbian urge by Bridget Hoffman. (Women in this adaptation want Lulu as much as the men do.) An undulating high point is an erotic fantasy dance number choreographed by Nadine Birtschansky featuring the Lulu alter egos and the shimmering countess.

But the production itself is a paradox and self-destructs. It’s an oddball, high-wire, three-ring decadent act that tries too hard to be sublimely grotesque; the trappings include a trapeze, a gorilla, a violinist and a white curving staircase straight out of a ‘30s Fred Astaire movie. The second act, following a first act that seems like a full-length play, begins with a long, pointless scene. Subsequent flab and overkill deflate momentum.

The show is maddening because it’s slinky silk and diaphanous one moment, strident and hysterical the next, a sexual vulgar whoop one second and then whiny.

It’s stupefying, given this production’s high sense of style, sheen and conceptual flair (Russell Pyle did the set and lights and Maria J. Gutierrez the costumes), that it should implode in the second act because it doesn’t know when to quit and lurches out of control like a runaway train.

“Lulu Plays,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. Thursdays - Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 17. $15-$17.50. (213) 477-2055. Running time: 3 hours.