HOLIDAY THEATER REVIEWS : Ensemble’s ‘Stories’ Transcends Season

Whether we know it or not in our electronic media-sated age, we need the primal power and magic of the story told around the campfire. Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble has created a metaphoric campfire with its winter solstice show in its second year, “Stories of the Season.”

Audience members join in, plucking five tales at random out of gift boxes (10 in all) placed around the performing space. The ensemble of Russ Anderson, Susan Dexter, Peggy Maltby, Mary Van Arsdel, Eric Briant Wells and co-creators Robert Alan Beuth and Robert George Harrison then shift like quicksilver from tale to tale, and breathe invigorating life into such newly added pieces as “In the Land of Snows” and Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “Hershele and Hanukkah.” Interestingly, neither addresses Christmas, but rather, the need for compassion that transcends all seasons and all creatures.

* “Stories of the Season,” Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble, 8780 Venice Blvd., West L.A. Tuesdays-Sundays, 8 p.m.; Dec. 12 and 19, 2 p.m.; Dec. 27, 8 p.m. (Dark Dec. 24-25.) Ends Dec. 30. $15. (213) 660-8587. Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

This selection of holiday stage reviews is by The Times ‘ theater writers.