Love and War : “My Poor Marat,” opening Saturday, is about a romantic triangle that takes place during the siege of Leningrad in 1942.

During wartime, there is an existential sense of urgency that makes the heart beat faster. Fall in love before it’s too late, that beat seems to spell out in its own code. It’s the same no matter what side you’re on.

That sort of longing is the frame in which Russian playwright Aleksei Arbuzov built his hit play “My Poor Marat,” which ran for 1,636 performances in Russia. But it has a lot more to say than that, according to Avner Garbi, who is directing the world premiere of a new American translation at North Hollywood’s Wild Side Theatre, opening Saturday.

The play has been translated before, under the title “The Promise,” for a successful British production, which later moved to Broadway in 1967. Garbi will be remembered for his direction of the Jim Morrison biographical play “The Lizard King,” in Hollywood. He had directed an Israeli production of “Marat” in Hebrew in 1968, and wasn’t happy with the British translation.

The story concerns two young men who fall in love with the same young woman during the siege of Leningrad in 1942, and continues through the reshaping of that triangle in 1959. It is so Russian in tone, Garbi says, that the British translation missed by a mile. One New York critic even commented that he felt he wasn’t watching the siege of Leningrad but the Battle of Britain.

“They changed a lot of things to make it accessible for the British,” Garbi explains. “When I decided to do it here, I wanted to change that. There’s no reason to do a Russian play with British rhythms and tone.”

This original translation was done by Angelina Bulbenko, paying attention to the similar strengths of Russian and American English.

Thomas Rhett Kee, who plays the title role of Marat, says, “It read more like a drawing room play, you know, like Noel Coward, very much like English people sitting around having tea.” Kee asked Bulbenko to look at it as a group of Russian-Americans communicating this deeply Russian story to fellow Americans.

Kee and Steven F. Anderson, who plays Leonidik, both received their master of fine arts degrees in theater at Brandeis University, and both have experience in regional theater. They fell in love with “Marat” when it was presented to them by Lori Ann Lesmeister, who plays Lika, the tip of the triangle. Lesmeister first became aware of the play during a workshop of it with Garbi at Hollywood’s West Coast Ensemble, where she is a member.

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To all three actors, the characters resonate with concerns that are pertinent to American audiences. In their youth, Marat wants to build bridges, Leonidik dreams of writing poetry and Lika is set on becoming a research doctor. The triangle almost keeps them from fulfilling their goals.

But it is in the tone of their meeting and early days during the siege where the actors find universal roots.

“The playwright uses so many recurring motifs,” Kee says. “Luck is a paramount recurring thing that happens with them all. These people live in a situation where they could walk out their front door and catch a shell. That is directly connected to life in Los Angeles, in the sense that it’s really a story about people being willing to love in what we call in the ‘90s an at-risk situation.

“Marat cannot risk reaching out and saying, ‘I love you,’ because like anyone coming back from a war, or coming back from a war zone like South-Central, it’s very difficult to say ‘I love you’ and then pow --and that person’s gone.

“That’s really what the play’s about, having the courage to love and commit, let yourself be vulnerable when so many times that’s been taken away from you.”

Lesmeister adds, “It also has a lot to do with understanding yourself, your dreams, and having the courage to achieve your dream, and facing the fact when you don’t.”

In the play, Anderson says, “The odds are that one of them would have been killed for sure. The chances of their being able to come together again after the war are minimal. That’s what the root of their bond is all about, the fact that they’re here. “

There is also the question of three careers that have gone by the wayside. The bridge builder, the poet and the research doctor don’t find themselves until their emotional triangle reaches its final shape.

Anderson feels as strongly about the play’s inner message about lost dreams. “It’s like walking off a bridge, and you don’t know where you’re at. The identification will be there.”

Where and When What: “My Poor Marat.” Location: Wild Side Theatre, 10945 Camarillo St., North Hollywood. Hours: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends Dec. 18. Price: $12. Call: (213) 466-1767.