Friel Gets His Irish Up in ‘Translations’

The Celtic Arts Center in Hollywood has achieved its metier with a strong production of Brian Friel’s lovely and harsh “Translations.” Set in a rural barn in remote County Donegal in 1833, the play touches the marrow and soul of Ireland’s historic troubles.

The production is drenched in atmosphere: from designer Richard Scully’s barn with the stone walls to Howard Schmitt’s ratty peasant garb clashing pointedly with the red and blue uniforms of the occupying Royal British gentry.

But the richest texture is in the language--”Translations” examines the human cost of cultural terrorism when England systematically set out to obliterate Ireland’s native Gaelic tongue.

The Irish fought back with “hedge schools,” underground classrooms in fields or byres. Part of the delight in “Translations” is a drunken schoolmaster (Bo Bruindin) teaching his barnyard flock Greek and Latin. One “poor scholar” (flavorfully played by Billy Woods) is a babbling vacuum of ancient mythology.

The playwright magically conveys the feeling that you’re hearing Gaelic when, in fact, the whole drama is written in English. With half of this ensemble from Ireland, the result is an aural feast.

While the play is passionate, it’s also non-militant and tender. Its many layers include a practical Irishman (the sympathetic Tim Ruddy) who works for the British by rewriting Gaelic place names on the county map. Other gritty characters are a boorish British captain (Sean Fallon Walsh) and a healthy peasant couple (Ian Beattie and Lara Campbell).

Under Jack Rowe’s sensitive direction, the finest moment is a great love scene. A British soldier and an Irish milkmaid (touching Christopher Collet and Morna Aine Regan), can’t understand each other’s words but communicate with a rapture beyond language.

The story’s distancing sheds light on present-day Ireland. In the opening scene, Friel signals the poverty of a culture dispossessed of its identity: a villager (the earnest Brian Mallon) patiently coaxes a young mute women (the engrossing Cynthia Savage) to stammer her own name. You know right there--this is something different.

“Translations,” Celtic Arts Center, 5651 Hollywood Blvd., Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 15. $8-12. (213) 883-1648. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

‘My Way’: A Special Personal Experience

As a theatrical form, the confessional solo performance piece always skirts the danger of narcissism. Brutal honesty isn’t enough. Even talent and material aren’t enough. And if the subject is a young woman’s journey through death, sex, love and life, your first instinct is to scream.

Happily, Terres Unsoeld’s “Making My Way in the Dark” at Stages is a special experience. It’s not that Unsoeld blazes new territory. But she draws on her unusual background--she was raised in Nepal by a Peace Corps father who was among the first Americans to climb Mt. Everest--to cast a particular and yet identifiable awakening.

She does this by continually reaching back into her childhood and teen years. Despite the fantasies and personal turmoil she catalogues, much of it hilariously sexual, there’s a piquancy and a feathery airiness about her style.

Is she acting or merely being herself? The latter is unlikely. Under director John Walcutt, there’s a focus, control and economy here that eschews sentimentality. Candor prevails, notably when Unsoeld deals with multiple family deaths (among them her father, killed climbing a mountain). In sum, a journey out of the dark that will strike curiously home to home.

“Making My Way in the Dark,” Stages, 1540 N. McCadden Pl, Hollywood, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 23. $8. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 50 minutes.

‘Peep-Hole’ Fails Credibility Test

A psychodrama needs to be a little depraved in order to work, and director/playwright Shem Bitterman’s “Peep-Hole” at the Olio is dark, edgy and demented.

Murkiness is the operative word, with bare light bulbs, kinked-out characters and a voyeuristic psychiatrist casting doom over this urban jungle of the mind.

The acting is well-shaded, particularly the diffident and troubled Patrick Husted as a shrink to the criminally insane and Rick Dean as his crazed, untamed and oddly affectionate client.

Among the dime-store characters are a detective (William Dennis Hunt) who is right out of a hard-boiled novel and an intense hooker (Kristin Trucksess) whose long legs and metallic allure corrupt the analyst. The only decent, stable character in this play is the psychiatrist’s wife (Nancy Mette), and she’s a bore.

What compromises the production is its jangled, fragmented structure, almost a willful choppiness, and the feeling at the fadeout that you’ve watched a kind of psychotic shaggy dog story. The resolution may be in character but it fails the test of credibility.

“Peep-Hole,” Olio, 3709 Sunset Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 30. $10. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

‘Rising Sea’ Lacks Emotional Fireworks

A young lesbian couple arrive at the Provincetown beach cottage of an older lesbian couple. The house is for sale, and the younger women make a deal to buy it. But you know how it is with real estate. Nothing is certain.

What is clear is that Kelly Masterson’s “Against the Rising Sea,” at the Celebration Theatre, is an effort to move beyond sexual orientation into other human matters, to dramatize characters who merely happen to be lesbian.

That’s a refreshing idea (from a male playwright). However, this very uneventful play cries out for a lot more emotional fireworks than are delivered here.

The production looks sharp. The house’s exterior is a gem and the beach patio is surrounded by real sand. But the first act gets practically buried in that sand, and the ultimate schematic unfolding of each couple’s battle scars is hardly gripping. In fact, notwithstanding some brief second act tilts that acknowledge the characters’ lesbianism, this is almost a non-story and these people could be anybody.

The female bonding is credible enough, though. The older women, Ivy Bottini’s crusty homeowner and Bette Rae’s cozy companion, are as comfortable together as a pair of old slippers. On the night reviewed, understudies (Marjorie Bly and Samiya Bashir) played the interracial younger couple.

“Against the Rising Sea,” Celebration Theatre, 7501 Santa Monica Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Nov. 24. $12-$15. (213) 957-1884. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Farndale’: Spoof That Falls Apart

Before the show even starts, fissures appear in the drawing room set. Parts of it begin to collapse. The chairwoman rushes on stage to restore calm. But things only get worse.

It’s “The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery,” one of a series of Farndale Avenue spoofs billed as a phenomenal success in the British Isles. The Farndale ladies find it fitting to set foot in the colonies at The Colony in Los Angeles. Their knockabout thriller, “Murder at Checkmate Manor,” pays farcical homage to genteel British mysteries with bungled lines, missed cues and an unending series of small disasters (mostly on-stage).

The show’s singular achievement is that the production appears to have twice as many actors scurrying around as the five who are actually in it.

Directed by a Brit, David McGillivray (who co-wrote the play with Walter Zerlin Jr.), the show features a deliciously twitty and twirpy Lisa Gates as the grande dame of the Farndale Society. She’s a cheery figure in the face of her inept cast (Ceptembre Anthony, Lisa Beezley, Carol Newell and Lambie). Along with the actors, Susan Gratch’s baronial set is in the throes of a breakdown.

So why isn’t this funny? You can tip your hat to the staging, the timing and the uniquely British style, but farce is delicate. Here, the chaos is predictable, repetitive and wearisome.

Playing at being a bad actor requires comedic gifts. Most of this cast lacks that dimension.

“The Farndale Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society,” The Colony, 1944 Riverside Drive, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Jan. 5. $15-$20. (213) 665-3011. Running time: 2 hours.