‘Five by Tenn’ Prefigures Tennessee Williams’ Themes

An artist’s miniatures, so to speak, often shed light on the large body of his work. Many consider Hemingway’s short stories more richly revealing than his novels. Tennessee Williams is another example of a writer whose early, short works anticipate all the full-length themes to come.

An evening of Tennessee Williams one-acts is certainly not a new idea, but the short plays in “Five by Tenn” are evocative and seldom staged.

Produced by the Actors Conservatory Ensemble at the Lex, the show delivers a tantalizing mix of some of Williams’ better-known one-acts (“27 Wagons Full of Cotton,” “Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen”) and some that aren’t so familiar (“The Lady of Larkspur Lotion,” “Hello From Bertha” and “The Long Stay Cut Short, or the Unsatisfactory Supper”).

Although three directors work with five casts, the production is unified and artful, each play centered on an outcast, a misfit or a hopeless dreamer and seamlessly folding into the next.

The most distinguished of the productions are the curtain raiser (“27 Wagons”) and the last entry (“The Long Stay”), both masterfully directed by Burr DeBenning. The performances are exceptional: Constance Forslund’s lacy, dimheaded baby doll, Michael Holden’s metallic seducer and Charles Hyman’s fatuous husband in “27 Wagons” and Kathleen Ingle’s ripe, coarse farm wife, Allen Williams’ remorseless husband and Nann Mogg’s touching old aunt being kicked off the farm in “The Long Stay.”

Other acting gems glowing amid the squalor and decay are Carol Lipin and Janet Kirby as an embattled landlady and tenant in the “The Lady of Larkspur Lotion,” directed by Jill Klein, and the versatile Lipin again as a miserable, dying shrew in a rooming house full of nosy young girls in “Hello From Bertha,” helmed by Dennis Redfield.

“Five by Tenn,” The Lex, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood . Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. Ends July 12. $10. (213) 463-6244. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

‘Miracle Worker’ in a Cinematic Setting

William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker,” with little Helen Keller blindly roaring around this big old Southern house and its patios and gardens, looks almost newly minted in the cinematic setting of the outdoor Theatricum Botanicum in sylvan Topanga Canyon.

It’s natural to see Shakespeare here, but this production adds to the suspicion that many plays, festering like weeds, can really bloom in this forested canyon that seems to leap from a Maxfield Parrish illustration.

As Annie Sullivan, the slum-bred teacher who guides the blind, deaf and mute Helen Keller to the magic of language, Ellen Geer is a spunky match for her wild young charge (the memorable Willow Geer-Alsop), who’s been spoiled to the point of a loose cannon by doting parents (wonderfully blustery George McDaniel and prim, decorous Melora Marshall).

Director Bill Molloy even manages to overcome the play’s inherent clunkiness with his wide open staging. One of the great things about this amphitheater-in-a-ravine is its natural accommodation to real animals, and Fritz, a guide dog for the blind and even more disciplined than the actors, sublimely hits his marks. (Speaking of kids, this is perhaps the most accessible adult play for children ever staged at the Botanicum.)

Vivid in supporting roles are Ernestine Phillips’ black housekeeper (the setting is Alabama in the 1880s) and Stacey Evans as the family’s disaffected adult son. Period costumes by Dick Magnanti are sharp, down to the telling minutiae of Geer’s wire-rimmed sunglasses.

“The Miracle Worker,” Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga . Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 1 p.m. Ends Aug. 2. $4-$12. (310) 455-3723. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Header & Swap Nite’: A Mixed-Results Bill

It’s a hellish night at the Blue Flame Drive-In outside Barstow. Pull up a seat to director-playwright Cheryl Slean’s “Swap Nite,” the edge of Purgatory, at the New One-Act Theatre Ensemble (Theater of NOTE).

Whiff the strange magic in the air and check out the weird projectionist high in his booth (the crazed Raub McKim. See the theater’s desert moll of an owner (Diane Robinson) mulling whether to sell out to a genuine desert rat (the evil Doug Burch).

Does all this make sense? Remarkably, it does, in a bewitching production that also features a couple of ordinary characters who sell popcorn and mop up (the hilarious Laura Pierson and the affable Manny Suarez).

What creator Slean has wrought, complete with a raggedy, cluttered projectionist booth in the theater’s loft (marvelously designed by Chris Kelley), is a gargoyle world set in crumbling asphalt, ominously lit by lighting designer Jason Berliner.

“Header,” however, the show’s opening one-act by writer-director Phil Ward, is a flaccid piece about young people coming to grips with the death of a loved one. The nominal lead (Dyanne DiRosario) hasn’t learned yet how to shriek on stage (there’s more to it than screaming).

The result is grueling except for a couple of unusual and distinctive performances (Ellen Blain’s gritty orphaned waif and Patric Z’s disturbingly shy foreigner).

“Header & Swap Nite,” Theatre of NOTE, 1705 N. Kenmore Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends July 18. $5-$10. (213) 666-5550. Running time: 2 hours.

Strong Performances Save Thin ‘Tapestry’

“Bonnie Earl Tapestry” at the Cast Theatre is a lugubrious play about two possessive women cloying at the feet of a young woman who sits physically damaged and comatose until she recovers enough sense and willpower to tell them both to get out of her life.

It’s a victory all right, but it’s a tough, dreary journey getting there.

Between the selfishness of a dismayed mom (Penelope Branning) who’s reluctant to accept her daughter’s independence and the selfishness of a callow, lesbian girlfriend (Laura Carney), H.L. Cherryholmes’ drama redefines the term clinging vine. As the targeted daughter, Joann Petrone hasn’t much to do except look dour and come up for air.

What almost salvages the production--she’s that good--is the fascinating actress Janne Peters, a serene and imperial tuxedo-clad tap dancer who omnisciently guides all these troubled women to self-discovery with a few chiseled rat-a-tat-tats of her dancing feet (to accommodating music by Jeneane Claps.

The play, unevenly directed by Ron Cogan, is also blessed with an affecting performance by Dick Sargent as the maimed girl’s understanding if weak father and the production’s only sympathetic character.

“Bonnie Earl Tapestry,” Cast Theatre, 800 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood, Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 7 p.m. Ends Aug. 2. $12. (213) 462-0265. Running time: 1 hours, 45 minutes.

‘Normal Joe’ Is Mildly Diverting

Late-night theater often operates in its own goofy zone. “Normal Joe,” written and directed by Dan Bell at the aptly named Lost Studio, features a leading man, Ted Raimi, who is three-quarters Buster Keaton and one-quarter Walter Mitty.

Whether Raimi is doing Keaton consciously or not, his dopey, glazed persona is one funny guy. He plays a nerdish, single accountant haunted by a sexist, jive-baiting alter ego (Lee Tergesen) whose screaming head keeps popping through round holes in the canvas set, like the kind you throw baseballs at on the midway.

A smitten Tracy Arnold is the yearning girl in heat and the revolting, plaid-suited Mickey Swenson is the gauche boss. It’s all silly enough to make you light-headed but not original enough to be a genuine diversion.

“Normal Joe,” The Lost Studio, 130 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles. Fridays-Saturdays, 10:30 p.m. Ends Aug. 1. $10. (213) 878-6826. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.