‘Broken Drum’ a Compelling American Tale

It’s always revealing to find an obscure play by a Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist. Jason Miller’s “Nobody Hears a Broken Drum” exposes another, even deeper vein in the Pennsylvania valleys of the man who wrote “That Championship Season.”

“Nobody Hears a Broken Drum” is, like “Championship Season,” a reflective drama cast in the shadows of the American dream. Set in the Civil War years, it dramatizes the Molly Maguires, a secret society of Irish-American coal miners who fought industrial and social oppression in the anthracite region of Tamaqua, Pa.

Director Gregory Bach’s production, at the Westside Theatre Group, is remarkably ambitious, given the 20-member cast and the physical constraints of the stage.

Upon entering the theater, you are plunged into a mine shaft (stunning set design by Bach and T. Baker Rowell) with two sweat-stained miners rhythmically clanging away in the pale light. Gradually, the action flashes back to a Shebeen (Irish pub) and the epic odyssey of the struggling miners, their families and the fiery Jamie O’Hanlin (the excellent Joseph Culp), who wages battle against the rapacious bosses and the company town.

There’s a striking connection to Robert Schenkkan’s Pulitzer winner, “The Kentucky Cycle.” First presented Off-Broadway in 1970, and rarely staged since, Miller’s play works on a much narrower historical and spatial plane. But its vivid texture resonates with the grime, greed, courage and betrayal of “Cycle.”

The text is overloaded; the only flaw in this thickly Irish-accented production is that it runs 30 or 40 minutes too long. But it’s compelling as one of the few American plays to deal expansively with the labor struggle, and the ensemble flavor of the flinty and clamorous cast is a special achievement.

“Nobody Hears a Broken Drum,” Westside Theatre Group, 11836 West Pico Blvd., West Los A ngeles, Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends May 16. $14. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 3 hours.

‘Lineup 2 1/2’--Clean, Lean and Tantalizing

In trying to capture the essence of a trip to Pipeline’s performance pieces at the Daniel Saxon Gallery Theatre, I once said the experience was like swimming under water.

Happily, the water’s still inviting--if a little murky--in some of director Scott Kelman’s “Lineup 2 1/2.” The work remains clean, lean and tantalizing.

The most accessible and riveting of the six pieces is “My First Time” by Tom Erickson, who performs it solo. Well, almost solo--into his monologue, an attractive woman in the audience quietly stands up with a curiously guilty expression. As we discover, she’s the long-vexing object of the young man’s devastating tale of his cruel betrayal in a sexual initiation rite upon high school graduation.

That actress (Wendy Barry) later appears full-blown as a sensuous widow undulating in black undergarments in “Chocolate Immortalities” (don’t ask) by Skie Bender and Julia Rader. Most of the pieces, set sparingly against a bright, white gallery wall, artfully employ choric ensembles and musical sound effects.

“The Hand,” by Colette, is a bizarre anatomical diversion adapted and performed by Jane Zingale. Peter Schroff’s bewildering “Cast” is a duet between a strange, intense idolater and his cast-iron anvil and object of worship.

Carmella Greacen’s vivid ode to her grandmother’s spiritual country cure, “Nana’s Holistic Medicine,” catches a deep-rooted ancestral code, and the white-smocked Joel Shapiro (a medical doctor in real life) exposes the emotional, suppressed side of a doctor’s relationship to his patient in “Mrs. Peters.”

All these experiments are earmarked by economy and wicked individuality.

“Lineup 2 1/2,” Daniel Saxon Gallery Theatre, 7525 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, Saturdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends April 26. $8-$10. (310) 207-4380. Running time: 2 hours.

Mixed Impressions From Pair of One-Acts

Playwright Rich Orloff’s pair of one-acts, “Judgment Days,” at the Hudson Theatre, is theater with a brain (“Kurt Was My Buddy”) and theater with a heart (“Where I Came From”).

The brainy play--a debate really--wins hands down with a disturbing theme about the illusion of moral superiority. A popular news anchor (John Boyle), who changed his name from Finkelstein to Foster to compete in a big-city market, upbraids an older colleague for his equivocal stance on Austrian president and ex-Nazi Kurt Waldheim. When the colleague reveals that “Kurt was my drinking buddy” when he was a pencil-pusher in the German army, the anchorman flies into a self-righteous rage. But the spoils of moral victory reside with the old German who knows the folly of casting the first stone.

In a rigorous performance by Robert Towers, the European confronts the younger man with his own country’s decimation of the American Indians, while illuminating his own integrity and obliterating the hypocrisy of the anchorman. Heady stuff, directed briskly by Mary Ruberry.

“Where I Came From,” about a daughter’s search for family identity in the face of an obstinate mother and uncle (Hariet S. Miller and J. David Moeller), featured a winning performance from understudy Esther Richman as a hallucinating Russian grandmother who represents the roots and cultural riches of the family. But Larry Eisenberg’s staging suffers from a flat performance in the daughter role, which mitigates the impact.

“Judgment Days,” Hudson Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, Monday-Tuesday, 8 p.m. Ends Tuesday. $8-$10. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Men’ Serves as Fodder for Female Bonding

The titled men are never seen, but they’re sure talked about (not favorably) in “These Men,” Mayo Simon’s irony-stained female-bonding comedy at the Chamber Theatre.

Shelly (tough/vulnerable Kristin Dolberg) is a blustery, messy, cynical love-’em-and-dump-’em gal who takes in the bereft Cloris (prissy, insecure, WASP-y Michele Curry), who has herself just been dumped by a boyfriend.

They’re the quintessential odd couple, and their characters are strong enough to sustain this affable duet, helmed in workmanlike fashion by Daren Curry on a pedestrian interior set design.

It’s fun to see the gradual role reversals and the bittersweet finale. The play chiefly addresses young, single women who want independence and a man. There’s one outrageously funny, gross, raunchy mime scene that Dolberg and Curry parlay with great glee and remarkable ease. It’s their most genuine moment, cutting through the act and facade that each perpetuates.

Curry’s neuroticism is so shrill and squeaky that her transformation into a calm, cool sophisticate is hard to accept, albeit deftly acted. The dour ending for Shelly, whose armor has turned to butter, is keenly conveyed by Dolberg.

“These Men,” Chamber Theatre, 3759 Cahuenga Blvd., Studio City , Friday s -Saturdays, 8 p.m. ; Sundays , 2 and 8 p.m. Ends April 26. $12-$18. (310) 459-1919. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Modern Drama’: Arch and Brittle

Neither the nymphomaniacal wife nor her elitist playwright husband talk like real people in Bill Sterritt’s “Modern Drama,” or “le drame moderne, il dramma moderno, dramatische modern, ching cha chi chow chi,” to give you an example of a line from the play now hyperventilating at the Zephyr Theatre.

Mixing the styles of Luigi Pirandello and Noel Coward, Sterritt’s play is so arch and brittle that it cracks. Director John York, however, draws a deliciously smug, sexy, assertive performance from sleek Elizabeth Holmes, who shows a flair for brazen comedy. As her temperamental husband, Jonathan Mittleman is all snarls.

There are five other characters, four of them voiceless, doppelganger figures from the husband’s one successful play--which was written out of spite for his wife’s infidelity on their honeymoon.

As an intellectual conceit, the play is heartless but mercifully short. Everybody is in search of an author here.

“Modern Drama,” Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, Mondays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends May 6. $5. (310) 659-0389. Running time: 1 hour.