‘Father’s Nose Bleeds!’ a Dissection of the ‘50s

1950s television has been curiously processed through the culture. First, as a collection of game show and comedy vehicles to sell consumer products. Second, as an increasingly surreal time capsule of America’s first love with suburbia, ideal for sociologists to pick apart. Third, as perfect syndicated filler on late-night, then cable channel schedules. And now, as a piece of theater.

Writer-directors Jim Landis’ and Randall Fontana’s “Father’s Nose Bleeds!,” at the Wooden-O Theatre, is made with a nutty awareness of all these layers, and an eagerness to be inside and outside the tube at the same time. That’s where it’s fun, and it’s also where the problems lie.

Kelly H’Doubler’s set, for instance, at first looks odd, until we realize that its black-white-gray design scheme coyly mimics the TV image. But we’re also meant to be the live studio audience (as well as eavesdroppers on the set during pre-taping ego battles), in which case, the black-and-white design joke makes no sense. And of course, when father’s (a borderline hysterical Landis) nose bleeds during crisis moments--which is all the time--the blood is red . Landis and Fontana have yet to fix where we are vis-a-vis this world.

But because we’re asked to play so many roles, we’re able to enjoy the double (even triple) layers of jokes stemming from all the roles the actors play.

So not only is the drolly gifted Craig Aldrich the actor no one seems to like, he’s also the heroic milkman on the show (he’s also a coughing pitchman for a cigarette sponsor). Grace Ellen Poole is not only the production’s prima donna, but also the dutiful mother of the Denton family. And so it wackily goes, with some remarkable doubling from Michael Grenie, Adriane Coros, Hamilton Mitchell, Lori Rae Nally and Marilyn Price. The plot outlandishly veers into areas like witchcraft that ‘50s sitcoms didn’t indulge in, but then “Father’s Nose Bleeds!” is actually sending out a simple message: We’re not in the ‘50s anymore.

* “Father’s Nose Bleeds!,” The Wooden-O Theatre, 2207 Federal Ave., West Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 13. $15; (310) 575-1922. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

‘Venice Beach’ Still Loses Its Way

Like the scrappy kids living by their wits on Venice’s unforgiving boardwalk, the musical “Greetings From Venice Beach,” at the Neon Factory, is a survivor--it hasn’t necessarily wised up over time.

“Greetings,” it should be explained, is actually the latest draft of a 1984 Venice-based rock musical, “Backstreet,” which cooked with energy even as it floundered with an aimless book. Alas, book writers Paul Gordon and Janit Baldwin have yet to find a shape and direction to their story, while Gordon’s and Jay Gruska’s music and lyrics remain the show’s life blood.

Corelle (a valiant Robin Skye), cajoled by cops to find out who torched a shelter housing Johnny, her ex-lover and the street’s guru-cum-laureate (a self-consciously hip Danny Peck), pesters a pint-sized homeless capitalist named Small Change (spunky Pamela Segall) for information. Small Change won’t say what she knows; Corelle keeps at her. This is a fairly static tug-of-war to build a musical around, even as the non-action is broken up with characters like teen runaway Annie (Lauren Fox), good-hearted Clay (Scotch Ellis Loring) and neighborly Mrs. Lapinsky (Cynthia Frost) wandering in and out.

It’s frustrating, for you can sense the show wanting to really take off. Never once sluggish, Joshua D. Rosenzweig’s staging in the large Neon Factory is ambitiously environmental (set designer Ramsey Avery has painstakingly recreated the boardwalk). Gordon’s and Gruska’s songs, charged by Gruska’s tight band, range across the pop map (oddly avoiding rap) but are bogged down by a book that refuses to go anywhere. In an interview, Gordon alluded to Venice’s current homeless-yuppie battles. Now that sounds like a conflict waiting to be staged.

* “Greetings From Venice Beach,” Neon Factory, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 13. $18-$20; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

Shay Duffin Re-Creates Behan in ‘Irish Rebel’

There’s probably nothing better for an actor’s creative Id than to be haunted by something, and for Shay Duffin, it’s the ghost of Irish playwright-raconteur-professional drunk Brendan Behan. His solo performance as Behan, “Confessions of an Irish Rebel” (revived in repertory at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble with his other blarney aria, “The Importance of Being Irish”) is Duffin being possessed once again by Behan’s spirit. There is nothing quite so interesting in the text as Duffin’s submission to this outside force.

By the end, after endless gabbing, singing and accounts of “the medicinal properties of Guinness,” Duffin has slowly, gradually created a convincing illusion of a man painfully soaked in alcohol and estranged to the world outside the pub. His Behan, under Dennis Hayes’ direction, loses control of consciousness like the nearly invisible running down of a clock, making his shockingly silent decay all the more ironic for a man never at a loss for words.

* “Confessions of an Irish Rebel,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Dec. 6. $15.50-$17.50; (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

More Shay Duffin in ‘Importance of Irish’

As Mario Cuomo once noted that his Italian identity was helpfully forged by being a shabbas goy--a non-Jew who lights the Saturday candles in the temple--so Duffin suggests that his own stint as a Dublin shabbas goy showed what it meant to be Irish in a larger world. Swept of the Behan show’s disturbing edges, Duffin’s “Importance” is a meandering, free-wheeling series of reflections on Irishness in the mother land and America.

Under Richard Cary’s direction, it’s a show for the ear, and it works to the degree that your ear can handle a lot of reflections. Duffin is understandably in love with the sound of his own voice--his explanation, for instance, of the nicknaming of all of his neighbors charmingly forges the Irish passion for the word and the family--but that love carries the price of a long evening that gets a wee carried away with chatter. But make him my Dublin tour guide anytime.

* “The Importance of Being Irish,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8:30 p.m. Ends Dec. 5. $15.50-$19.50; (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.