STAGE REVIEW : Designers Are Real Stars of Muller Plays at UCI : * The acting isn’t always enough to exalt these didactic plays above the level of a disagreeable lecture by a humorless pedant.

UC Irvine is taking chances by presenting two plays by contemporary German writer Heiner Muller: This postmodern dramatist is more polemicist than storyteller. But these stagings of his poetic dissertations aren’t altogether up to the Herculean task of rendering entertainment in defiance of conventional narrative.

The two pieces, “Despoiled Shore/Medeamaterial/Landscape with Argonauts” and “Hamletmachine,” are saturated with images meant to disturb, electrify and enlighten. Each play is a collage of sight and sound which reference classical literature, modern headlines, popular media and world politics, to name only some of the sources of inspiration. At UCI, the plays accomplish, at best, a challenging synthesis of the grotesque and the pathetic, and at worst, a naive, joyless diatribe.

“Hamletmachine” is by far the more successful. Director Keith Fowler’s dynamic staging accesses both the harrowing and the humorous in this skewed re-examination of Hamlet, the archetypal modern man, incapacitated by his revulsion for the society into which he has been born as reluctant hero.

The set is a wonderfully slime-green, tiled laboratory complete with hydraulic lifts which suggest implements of torture, used to hoist actors in bizarre, symbolic poses. The refrigerator oozes blood, and a coffin is rolled in and opened to reveal a gloating couple locked in lust. Ophelia does a striptease and Hamlet becomes a woman while three Nazi-like scientists take notes. This apocalyptic probe into the works of man concludes grimly, with the female chorus’ murderous promise to “take back the world I gave birth to and bury it in my womb.”

The performances are precise, energetic and surprisingly sympathetic, particularly Mikael Salazar’s as Hamlet; he conveys a very familiar, modern cynicism while maintaining his identity as the hapless Prince of Denmark. But the physical production is the real star of the show, and the efforts of set designer Douglas-Scott Goheen, costumer Beth Novak and lighting designer Doreen Tighe come together to create a dungeon of horror you almost can recognize, even if you don’t want to.

The designers are the stars in “Despoiled Shore . . .,” too, which is staged outside the Fine Arts building in a square dirt arena neatly segmented by a dozen olive trees, with seating on two sides and projection screens enclosing the ends. The athletic acting company of four men and four women hammers out a ritualistic investigation into the destructive interplay of men and women, and the blight of rage that is its only surviving child.

But the tremendous effort of the actors, who spend 1 1/2 hours in tortuous acrobatics and declamatory fervor, does not exalt this didactic production above the level of a disagreeable lecture by a humorless pedant, determined to demonstrate that he knows more about the topic than anyone else in the joint.

Directors Stephen Barker and Michael David Fox may fall back upon the excuse that Muller’s script gives no suggestions as to how to actualize his doomsday drama. But the solutions they have come up with, while imaginative in many regards, still add up to the kind of production that evokes secret, knowing looks between audience members that admit to boredom tempered by the sense that something so “modern” must be important.

In fact, there is nothing new in this kind of theater, which became mainstream American in the ‘60s, although it may be new to this generation of college students and, if so, they really should go and check it out. It’s the kind of theater that everyone ought to see at least once.

However anti-formulaic, “environmental theater,” as it often was called in the old days, still must meet the basic demands of entertainment--that nasty standard--by engaging rather than browbeating. “Despoiled Shore . . . “ does not raise as much concern for the plight of mankind as it does for those poor olive trees, which are abused liberally in the name of postmodern art.

‘Despoiled Shore/Medeamaterial/Landscape with Argonauts’ and ‘Hamletmachine’

A UC Irvine production of the plays by Heiner Muller, translated by Carl Weber. “Despoiled Shore . . . “ directed by Stephen Barker and Michael David Fox. With Lise Brown, Hope Chernov, Allen Moon, Kelly Perine, Gary San Angel, Ann Shipley, Eric D. Steinberg, and Beth Stinson. “Hamletmachine” directed by Keith Fowler. With Joe Batte, Michael A. Mufson, Aaron Shorr, Mikael Salazar, Gabrielle Beimforde, Stephanie Lasko, Melinda McIlwaine, Alicia C. Morin, Jon Sidoli, and Stephen M. Burdman. Scenic designs by Douglas-Scott Goheen. Costume designs by Beth Novak. Lighting designs by Doreen Tighe. Nightly at 7 p.m. at UCI. “Despoiled Shore . . . “ in the Fine Arts Olive Grove (dress warmly) is followed by “Hamletmachine” in the Concert Hall. Through Saturday. The production contains nudity and explicit language. Tickets: $9 to $14. Information: (714) 856-6616.