Powerhouse Scores With Fierstein Drama

Harvey Fierstein’s “On Tidy Endings,” a one-act play set against the specter of AIDS, signals promise for the Powerhouse Repertory Company, under the artistic management of Richard Hochberg and Jon Larson.

Hochberg stars in and Larson directs this tremulous drama about the awkward encounter between a man who has just buried his live-in lover and the dead man’s ex-wife, who comes seeking some personal items.

Hochberg is affably nervous as the grieving survivor. As his nemesis, Nancy Kandal mirrors the metallic coolness of an overly aggressive ex-wife whose facade finally melts under the spontaneity of unexpected fireworks between the pair. While the loving hugs at the end are predictable, the fragility of the piece is poignantly rendered.

A real estate agent (the no-nonsense Carolyn Hennesy) deftly sets up the dramatic confrontation. A fourth character, the wife’s argumentative young son (Eric Severson), is essentially expendable.

Opening the show is a dark curiosity of a monologue that’s as pointed about AIDS as the main production. “Coco,” by Tracy Cave (adapted from “Bloodwhispers: L.A. Writers on AIDS”), features a speaker (the affecting Michael John Hinton) describing AIDS under the Big Top.

The object of the monologue is a clown named Coco who died of AIDS (the visible but silent Mark Paskell who hauntingly pantomimes some of his clown act during the monologue). Larson also directed in what amounts to a “tidy opening” of the evening.

* “On Tidy Endings,” Powerhouse Repertory Company, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica. Regular schedule: Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Dark Thursday , next Friday, Dec. 31, Jan. 1. Ends Jan. 17. $12. (310) 392-6529. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.

‘Inside Lois’: Writer’s Crisis

Written and directed by young women, “Inside Lois” at Theatre/Theater examines a twentysomething crisis in the life of a female free-lance writer for women’s magazines.

Debuting 25-year-old playwright Aline Brosh (who once had a story killed at Glamour) and 24-year-old director Lauren Fresh distill a modicum of comedic drama from what strongly feels like personal material.

While the play deals with four men in the life of the protagonist (the earnest Julie Glucksman), the viewpoint is almost exclusively female in its sensibility.

The emotionally divided young woman lives with a boyfriend-poet (Russell Edge) but is sexually tempted by a lawyer friend (Tom Hale). At the same time, she has a curiously revealing phone relationship with an anonymous guy at the telephone company (Tim Maculan) and, among all this, shares dutiful dinners in fancy restaurants with her boulevardier of a bachelor dad (the wonderfully self-inflated Drew Snyder).

As if that’s not enough, an ovarian cyst compels her to reappraise her whole life--a gynecological distraction, however sparely and evenly treated, that the play can’t shoulder and would be immensely improved without.

The show’s achievement, however, is not its all-too-familiar plot but its intricate staging, where 17 scenes create sharply focused delineations of place and space. Set designer Heather Basarab (a senior at UCLA) does wonders with the tiny back space at Theatre/Theater, abetted by lighting designer Sean Forrester’s pools of illumination and Ben Decter’s sound design.

* “Inside Lois,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, Saturday-Sunday, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 27. $10. (213) 935-5856. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

A Lachrymose AIDS Musical

Often the most aching intent is too sincere for its own good. An AIDS-themed pastiche of songs, scenes, dance and poetry, “In Whatever Time We Have” winds up so lachrymose a musical commentary that you almost feel as if you’re attending a memorial service instead of the theater.

Conceived and directed by Rich Sienko, the production at the Hudson Theatre does feature some pointed scenes such as Harvey Fierstein’s “The Alley and Bar Vignettes” (from “Safe Sex”) and one lovely ballet performed by Dana Futoran and Kevin Moore and choreographed by Kelly Ann Conroy. But generally, neither the acting, the staging nor the vocalizing are original or vivid enough to make more than a gliding impact.

A softness, a temple-like reverence flattens the core of this show and makes it murderously weepy. Instead of adopting a zestful, attacking tone, the cast indulges in pale satire, such as a square All-American family that comes to see the error of its sexual bigotry.

But when the cast, in a ceremonial display, lights up candles, that’s it. The show impales itself on a candlestick.

* “In Whatever Time We Have,” Hudson Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood . Monday s through Wednesday s, 8 p.m. Ends Jan. 14. $15. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Shaw Survives in ‘Paper Courtship’

Edward Ludlum, celebrating 50 years in the theater, is indulging an obvious labor of love in “The Paper Courtship” at the St. Genesius Theatre.

Ludlum and Joan Crosby (who alternates with Vicki Bakken) read from the selected correspondence of George Bernard Shaw and his dear, beloved Ellen Terry, the famous Victorian actress. Theirs was a monumental friendship, sealed exclusively through letters avidly written from 1892 to 1920.

We hear excerpts, dealing largely with the changing literary and theatrical worlds, mixed with charming personal asides and occasional disagreements and anger. Compiled by Richard Findlater, the dramatic reading is quaint and beguiling up to a point.

Yet there are problems that a director or set designer (none are credited) would surely have corrected. The presentation is marred by a distracting, unnecessary intermission and by a tacky set design in which the costumed Ludlum and Crosby are seen reading against an ugly set of murky metal file cabinets clumped together across the back of the stage--a distraction that breaks the fourth wall and sweeps you out of the play and into the world of a warehouse--and not even a Victorian warehouse.

Finally, Terry (at least as performed by Crosby) is dramatized with a sense of immediacy, constantly scribbling while simultaneously voicing her words to Shaw, a credible touch. In stark contrast, Ludlum’s Shaw is never writing anything but instead stands reading from a binder, as if his are old letters.

This imbalance and inattention to detail is dumbfounding. In any event, nothing can hurt the letters. They’re indestructible.

* “The Paper Courtship,” St. Genesius Theatre, 1039 Havenhurst St., West Hollywood. Saturdays and this Sunday, 1 p.m. Ends Jan. 2 . $10. (213) 658-7217. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.