Cultures Collide in Morris’ ‘Aliens’

In Leningrad, 5-year-old Vladimir Lensky looks up at the stars and sees his future. In a beautiful Los Angeles garden, another 5-year-old looks up at the stars and begins to feel lost.

They are destined to meet a dozen years later, in Steven Morris’ tender, bittersweet examination of cultures colliding, “Aliens,” at Pacific Theatre Ensemble in Venice. It’s a meeting full of implications for the boys and those they love and a sad commentary on a rapidly changing world. Morris sees them as icons: one rising out of the ashes of a lost heritage, the other crushed by a heritage against which he has no defense.

Vladimir’s mother Olga has trouble assimilating, but Vladimir forces her to speak “American.” Neither can get daughter Tina to speak; she’s been silent since they left the Soviet Union. But they follow Vladimir as he quietly bulldogs his way upward. He studies “17 hours a day” just like the “Oriental kids.”

His American counterpart, Gene, has by this time been kicked out of boarding school for failing grades, and has trouble asking rich papa for money to fix his Porsche. He steals pills from his mother’s medicine cabinet for his older brother Tony to sell. At rock bottom, he steals a pair of socks from K mart.

He also takes bass violin lessons from Olga, and Gene is the one Tina finally talks to. He might have found the family he never had--or maybe it’s too late.

Ellen Krout-Hasegawa directs Morris’ play like the piece of music it really is, on a bare white octagonal surface in PTE’s new annex space. The actors move into the action from the sidelines and often punctuate the action as commentators, setting locales and moods.

“Aliens” is at its best when the playwright’s focus closes in on detail: Gene and Tina’s mutual discovery of each other, Olga’s gentle efforts to keep her children’s heritage alive in their hearts, the chill of Gene’s brother’s approach to success, Vladimir’s vision of belonging among the stars.

Patrick Fabian and Darren Modder never miss a shade or tone as Gene and Tony, two edges of the knife that slices the white-bread dream. Sadie Chrestman’s vulnerability as Tina is just right for a young girl not always making the right choices in the New World, and the slightly sharp angles Sarah Zinsser gives to Gene and Tony’s newly single mom are exactly those of a woman who sees the dream floating away from her. Nicholas Cascone’s Vladimir has the high energy of the winner Vladimir is, and Russian actress Nina Borisoff captures the gentleness and underlying strength of Olga’s complicated personality.

With Tina in his arms, Gene once again stares into the sky and says, “There goes the moon.” He, and Morris, might be speaking of the state of the Western world, where newcomers are not the only aliens.

“Aliens,” Pacific Theatre Ensemble, 707 Venice Blvd., Venice; Thur., also May 31, June 8-9, 12-14, 16, 20-23, 8 p.m. Ends June 23. $12; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.