THEATER REVIEW : Plays About More Than Doomed Love

West Coast Ensemble is alternating performances of “Bitter Cane” and “La Malasangre” (“Bad Blood”), two plays by contemporary women, set in the 19th Century. Both are ostensibly about doomed love affairs, but both apparently have deeper themes too.

The subtext isn’t all that subterranean in “La Malasangre,” by Argentine playwright Griselda Gambaro, especially if you consider that Gambaro was forced into exile from her country from 1977 to 1988. This fact is noted in the program, so most of the audience should be aware of it.

Her play (translated by Margaret Feitlowitz) is a stark catalogue of totalitarian horrors, disguised as a domestic drama set in an aristocratic household in the 1840s. The family at the center of the story is one of the world’s most abusive, run by a tyrannical father (Robert Getz) with a Hitlerian mustache, who cackles with glee at his own monstrous behavior.

He hires a hunchbacked tutor (Pablo Marz) for his beautiful, nearly grown daughter (Christine Gonzales), assuming the man’s appearance will eliminate any possibility of hanky-panky. The girl nonetheless flirts with the tutor, whose resistance leads only to his own beating by the father’s sadistic henchman (Robert Madrid).

The tutor’s behavior in the face of such injustice attracts the girl all the more. Soon the tutor responds, and they actively plan their escape together.

In the first part of the play, the title and the red and black scenic and costume design (credit Gregory Hopkins and Michael Growler, respectively) are merely omens of the gore to come. If it didn’t have the status of political allegory, the play might qualify as Grand Guignol. At moments, it’s tempting to simply laugh at the excess. Clearly this is intended in Jim Krestalude’s depiction of a hissable suitor.

But director Steven Avalos and his cast interpret their tale with sufficient conviction so that in the end, the audience takes it seriously. Marz maintains an admirable balance of desperation and dignity.

Most of Genny Lim’s “Bitter Cane” is set in 1882 on an Oahu sugar cane plantation, where Chinese laborers work the fields and a Chinese prostitute (Jo Yang) works the laborers.

A fresh-scrubbed teen-ager (Kei Hayashi) arrives for the work and falls for the prostitute, only to discover that she knew his now dead father (Charles Chun, onstage as a ghost) as well. The bedroom scenes simmer, thanks primarily to a sensual performance by Yang. But the larger point Lim is trying to make about the exploitation of these people is largely lost in the hazy lyricism of the ghost character and the self-conscious speechifying of several of the others.

* “Bitter Cane,” West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd. Thursday, Friday and Nov. 13, 18, 19, 27, Dec. 2, 3, 11, 8 p.m.; Nov. 14 and 28, Dec. 12, 3 p.m. $15. (213) 871-1052. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. * “La Malasangre,” West Coast Ensemble . Saturday and Nov. 11, 20, 26, Dec. 4, 9, 10, 8 p.m.; Nov. 7 and 21, Dec. 5, 3 p.m. $15. (213) 871-1052. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.