‘Hedda’ Has a Future in 1920s Japan

Could Hedda Gabler live--and die--in 1920s Japan?

Dorothy Lyman’s East West Players production makes a case for it, and the case will get stronger as the production grows into Henrik Ibsen’s play. It will because Jude Narita plays Hedda, and she has just scratched the surface of what is possible with Ibsen’s most provocative, disturbing heroine. In her remarkable one-woman show, “Coming Into Passion/Song for a Sansei,” Narita displayed Olympian acting chops.

Right now, Lyman’s “Hedda Gabler” is only a sketch of the play, one that takes too long to build toward a strong fourth act. Though Michael Paul Chan genuinely captures George Tesman’s subservience and Shelly Desai gives his Judge Brack an insinuating Peter Lorre quality, Steven Vincent Leigh’s Lovborg is hardly a man at the end of his tether and Patricia Ayame Thomson’s Thea inserts inappropriate geisha-like dimensions into a woman of real courage.

That leaves Narita at the center, delving her way into the role. Hedda’s Japanese-ness comes through in two interesting, often ignored ways: her strict, patriarchal upbringing, and her wish that Lovborg’s suicide be “beautiful.” At the same time, Narita makes Hedda so bitchy that when the vulnerable cracks surface, there’s no sympathy.

Until the last act, which indicates that this is a performance-in-progress. Jose Lopez’s lights, too bright for this autumnal play, still need work too, but Gronk’s and Steven La Ponsie’s intelligent set subtly have interior decorating Westernisms seeping into this proper Japanese household.

“Hedda Gabler,” East West Players, 4424 Santa Monica Blvd., Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends March 17. $12-$15; (213) 660-0366. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

One-Acts Explore Human Identity

Peter DeAnda’s one-acts at Inner City Cultural Center are clearly not packaged by some desire to showcase the writer-director, but to explore a difficult theme--the liquid nature of human identity.

“I.D.,” for instance, shows a terribly damaged Vietnam vet named Francois (DeAnda) who thinks he’s Ho Chi Minh. Lindsay Carlos Smith’s Jimmy tries to help, though it’s like trying to save a drowning whale. DeAnda wisely lets us fill in how Francois devolved, even as we wonder why this dangerous man isn’t in a V.A. hospital. Smith and DeAnda tend toward the frantic, alas.

Much calmer is “The Sculptor,” whose murky dialogue (Willie Carpenter’s Santee asks Kimberly Singleton’s Beryl “to be an actress as a model”) cannot sink an interesting look at the manipulations of image on the fringes of show business. It is a scene which begins with Santee coaching three actresses (including Monica Tolliver and Vanessa Hampton) and ends on a twist which would be more credible if DeAnda directed with a Pinteresque sense of foreboding.

Mandy (Victoria Morsell) and Paul (Patrick Behr) in “Changing Winds” turn identity into a fatal game along the banks of a Tennessee river. He wants to sleep with her, but, first, she wants him to feel what it’s like to be a woman. DeAnda finds a balance between his concern for make-believe and real consequences, while Morsell finds that wonderfully dramatic line that divides girlishness and womanhood. Behr, however, hardly seems to be in Tennessee.

“I.D.,” Inner City Cultural Center, 1308 S. New Hampshire Ave., Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Indefinitely. $15; (213) 387-1161 or (213) 735-5851. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

‘Perestroika Plays’ Sidestep Politics

P erestroika , Mikhail Gorbachev’s glorious contribution to global language, means restructuring . In the two “Perestroika Plays” directed by Marc Clopton at Gorky’s, little is restructured. Nor do Ralph Pape’s “Girls We Have Known” and Michael Weller’s “At Home” contain a political moment.

Instead, Pape’s male buddies on the road in Kansas (a vital Albie Selznick and a miscast Mark Siciliani) and Weller’s married pair, fighting before the dinner guests arrive (a more assured Siciliani and a blank Destiny Holbrook), both come to reconciliations of a sort. The hurdles are, respectively, male sexual envy and marital fatigue, but each script’s slightness (especially disappointing in Weller’s case) is emphasized by Clopton’s workshop-like direction.

“Perestroika Plays,” Gorky’s, 1716 N. Cahuenga Ave., Wednesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Sundays,3 p.m. Ends March 3. $10; (213) 969-4730. Running time: 1 hour,50 minutes.

‘Distraction,’ ‘Populis’ at Hartung Theatre

For the lower depths of workshop material, though, there is an inexplicable pairing at the Hartung Theatre in the Complex: Michael L. Ross’ treacly “Distraction” and Gideon Potter’s series of skits with masks, “Populis.”

Burdened with New Age sentiments and lingo (Paul Eves’ John tells Debra Guarienti’s Mary: “You gave me you. I gave you my love. I never gave you me.”), “Distraction” means to show a couple torn apart by war and misunderstanding, talking to each other across time and space. But, under Ross’ heavier-than-thou direction, it literally sounds like ad copy for his-and-her perfumes.

“Populis” is astonishingly unfunny, considering the obvious efforts writer-director-designer Potter and cast have gone to. Silent skits like “Ed and Lou,” “International Man,” “In Your Face” and “Sisters” lack even the sense of a visual punch line, and the language in other skits, such as “You Hurt Me, So I . . .,” is cliche-ridden. Potter’s group can’t get away with spoofing circus acts, as in “Tsirque D’Oy Vay,” because they haven’t shown they have the goods themselves. Back to the workshop.

“Distraction” and “Populis,” Hartung Theatre at the Complex, 6468 Santa Monica Blvd., Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m.. Ends March 3. $10; (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

‘Organized Male’ at Coast Playhouse

Like a train wreck, Larry Weir’s musical, “The Organized Male,” at the Coast Playhouse, is such a disaster that it’s almost fascinating. While you feel sorry for the passengers (i.e., director Philip McKeon’s hapless cast), it makes you wonder where the drivers’ heads were at.

Weir plays a stoned ad writer in New York whose company promotes him to an L.A. post--instead of firing him, as any good recession-era outfit would. He swears, between puffs, sniffs, home video interludes and prerecorded tunes, that he’ll clean up his act. Stopping the show would be a start.

The only reason to stay for the second act is to see if things can get any worse (OK, we’ll give it away: they do). By the third (yes, third ) hour, Weir and company have maligned women (Howard Stern would love this stuff), gays, babies, African-Americans and the Japanese (two Tokyo executives are played by Anglo actors). When the end finally comes, it’s hard to tell if the show exists for the fourth-rate songs, or as some kind of promotion posing as theater.

“The Organized Male,” Coast Playhouse, 8325 Santa Monica Blvd., Mondays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends March 6. $15; (213) 650-8507. Running time: 3 hours.