Satirical Stabs at America’s Corrupted Heart

The Alliance Repertory Company, which is so obscurely situated in a nighttime dead zone of Burbank that its entrance is on the alley side, is becoming visible.

From the dregs of the unspeakable “Jump Camp” early last year, this group has really turned things around: This summer saw one of the year’s best one-acts, “Tracks,” and now, “Rage! or I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” Kevin Armold’s and Gus Buktenica’s comically acidic satire about the corrupted heart of America.

More importantly, the authors set their first act in “The Heartland,” which has become--if you can believe this--a sickened version of the already diseased American family in “Married . . . With Children.” Whitey (Jeff Doucette) cons his estranged kin over for Christmas dinner, on the pretense that he’s dying. Wife Inita (Minda Burr) has no control over her gay son Russell (Kyle Miller), who’s constantly humiliated in front of everyone, and daughter Priscilla (Suzan Fellman), who wildly makes out with boyfriend Wilson (Ben Meyerson), also in front of everyone.

Oh, do they know how to get at each other. Russell knows not only that Priscilla is pregnant, but by whom. Whitey gives Inita the most distasteful Christmas present in gift-giving history, and the others handed out aren’t much better. If a nuclear family has hit the China Syndrome, it’s this one.

This is only about one-third of what Armold and Buktenica have in store, with the remainder a furious typhoon of surprises. The second act, for example is three years later; seemingly not a single character from three years before is around, and yet the two halves are craftily married. Director John Randle and cast, aided by Matthew C. Jacobs’ ingenious set, understand that this is a comedy about the schisms in the national soul.

Though not every highly theatrical effect in the second act works (though Peter Fox does, in a remarkable, satirical performance), “Rage!” is painfully in touch with its violent subject.

“Rage! or I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” Alliance Repertory Company, 3204 Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 21. $15; (818) 566-7935. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Joan’: Skewed View of the War Heroine

Playwright Linda Chambers originally wrote her drama about Joan of Arc, titled simply “Joan,” as a one-act. Although it’s been stretched out in William Mays’ Globe Playhouse production to two, it still feels like a one-act.

Not only that, but a one-act that doesn’t go very far--which is fairly incredible, considering the subject. Chambers tracks Joan from peasant girl and on through her execution-by-pyre, yet almost completely jumps over Joan’s military campaigns against the English, who were attempting to swallow up France in the Hundred Years War. It’s like ripping out most of the best pages of a good read.

What this does is skew our view of the heroine, away from her actual identity as an intensely spiritual yet militarily shrewd leader, and toward the persona of a mystic with tinges of madness. This dubious vision comes complete with chiffoned and near-nude angels and all sorts of feverishly over-written monologues, sprinkled with absurd 20th-Century anachronisms.

Worst of all, this Joan goes absolutely nowhere. Rain Pryor does a clear, impassioned reading as the maiden, far and above the rest of the cast (except for the always clear Allan Kolman). But it’s a performance stuck on the playwright’s treadmill, so that even the climactic trial becomes a drone of repetitions.

“Joan,” Globe Playhouse, 1107 Kings Road, West Hollywood, Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Indefinitely. $20; (818) 988-0534. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

‘Saturday in the Park’: Familiar Macho Theme

Larry Romano reports in the program biography for his one-act at the Burbage Theatre, “Saturday in the Park,” that he once sold his drums to pay for acting school. He’s written a play about a Bronx guy named Danny who sells his drums to pay his way out to California and music-business dreams, but cast himself as Danny’s pal, Mikey, who doesn’t want Danny to go.

We’re talking actors’ showcase here, allowing Romano and cohort Walt Woodson space and time to put on their best Noo Yawk routine, under Andy Griggs’ unobtrusive direction.

Their dialogue follows the familiar pattern of macho one-upmanship, confession, mouth-to-mouth and hand-to-hand wrestling and the inevitable heartwarming finale. Romano and Goodson lend it some muscle (and Christian Klemash, as a walk-on plot device, lends it the funniest moment), but we’ve seen this exercise before.

“Saturday in the Park,” Burbage Theatre, 2330 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles, Fridays-Saturdays, 9:30 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Ends December 15. $15; (213) 478-0897. Running time: 1 hour, 5 minutes.

One-Act Celebration From Coast to Coast

Probably the best aspect of the West Coast Ensemble’s annual “Celebration of One-Acts” is how it draws in work from all over the country. For instance, the pieces in Series B (the second of the three-part series) are from Seattle’s Sue Pace (“The Super”) and New York’s Alan Minieri (“Your Life Is a Feature Film”). Both, by the way, are from real theater towns, like L.A.

And the writing is about on the level of most L.A. theater writing--which, right now, isn’t terrific. “The Super,” directed by Avner Garbi, feels like Pace’s playwriting response to an argument she had with someone about God’s existence. It’s not just that Pace believes in God, but that God allows bad things to happen to good people because his greatest value is life at all cost.

Hers is an underdeveloped secular theology, so to speak, in which the Man Upstairs is a handyman (the saccharine Lou Wagner) controlling the destinies of unhappy marrieds (Joyce Meadows and Lee Wessof, versatile, except when they have to play kids). Pace has a long way to go on this one.

Minieri really shouldn’t go any further with his. “Your Life Is a Feature Film” is a shallow, smart-alecky turn on Shakespeare’s notion that “all the world’s a stage.” Or, in this case, a movie, starring an unsuspecting 21-year-old (Chad McCord) who thinks he’s been living out a real life. Once the central gag has been revealed, though, Minieri can’t manage the necessary ironic turn his plot needs. Director Bruce Grossberg, though, gives his cast plenty of room to skewer show-biz types who’ll do anything for a job.

“Celebration of One-Acts, Series B” West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Nov. 20, 29, Dec. 7, 10 and 11, 8 p.m.; Dec. 8, 2 p.m. $15; (213) 788-5900. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Country Girl’: Head for the Hills

There are some who revel in Clifford Odets’ language in his play about theater people, “The Country Girl.” To these ears, it sounds mostly arch and self-conscious. But it’s hard to imagine either camp reveling in Ron Satlof’s staging at the Tiffany Theatre.

So bad is this version that it comes perilously close to burying the play for good. Casting Stuart Whitman as Frank, the aging alcoholic thespian drawn back to the stage, seems like such an unlikely idea that it’s inspired.

Alas, we’re always sensing Whitman’s own struggle through the role rather than Frank’s; it slows everything down to a crawl, and not even the reliable Robert Miano as the put-upon director can lift things up. What really drives this production over the cliff, though, is Elizabeth Sanders: Her Georgie, the country girl, is delivered in a weird, disembodied monotone. Because she’s at the play’s center, this “Country Girl” becomes creepily robotic.

“The Country Girl,” Tiffany Theatre, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 15. $18.50-$22.50; (213) 289-2999. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.