STAGE REVIEW : Etudes About Manicurist, Manson at Burbage

Julie Hebert’s “Died Suddenly” and David Garrett’s “Charles Manson: On Your Children,” an adaptation of Manson’s final testimony, are not plays per se. They’re theaterpieces, or etudes, depending on the sound of words, their juxtaposition and tonal values.

In this production at the Burbage Theatre, they are less than successful, not because of the writing itself, which in both cases has an aura that is musical and evocative.

Nor is the fault in the lucid performances by the quintet of actors, Tressa Di Figlia, Elizabeth Tobias, Gwen Brownson, Russell Edge and Jesse H. Rivard. Co-directors David Mowers and Melissa Shenkin simply haven’t integrated theatrical movement, or lighting, in their own design, to provide a visual framework for the choral exactness of the writing and the acting.

In spite of usually glaringly bright lights, Di Figlia and Tobias achieve a poetic flavor in Hebert’s sonata to a young manicurist whose erotic fantasy is almost fulfilled when a deceased customer takes over her body. The customer’s fiance, long a secret object of the manicurist’s affections, is suddenly attracted to her, without knowing why.

Di Figlia and Rivard are most successful in capturing the frantic energy and skewed reasoning of Manson and his deluded family.

“Died Suddenly” & “Charles Manson: On Your Children,” Burbage Theatre, 2330 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles. Thursdays, 8:30 p.m.; Fridays-Saturdays, 9 p.m. Ends Feb. 20. $12; (310) 478-0897. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.