THEATER REVIEW : ‘The Manchurian Candidate’: Is It a Book, Play or Movie? : Carrie Snodgress ably exploits her role in a staging that updates the novel and cult film.

Similar to its brain-washed Korean War veterans, “The Manchurian Candidate” suffers from an identity crisis. Is it Richard Condon’s 1959 novel that satirized Cold War hysteria? Is it John Frankenheimer’s 1962 chilling film version that eerily prophesied the Kennedy assassination? Or is it John Lahr’s 1991 stage adaptation blending fiction and screenplay into a cautionary fable about media manipulation?

West Coast Ensemble’s production can’t make up its mind. Although this “Manchurian Candidate” begins in bold Kabuki style, with extras assembled ceremonially in black kimono robes, director Jules Aaron and company gradually lose confidence in such theatrical storytelling. Distracting subplots from fiction’s leisurely pace start to possess our imaginations. Minimalism’s artifice is soon replaced by crowds and numerous locations, futile attempts to duplicate cinema’s visual scope. This stylistic schizophrenia finally undermines its dramatic impact.

Nevertheless, there is much to recommend here. Lahr is arguably the nation’s best drama critic; his reviews for The New Yorker magazine demonstrate a rigorous intellect and a unique understanding among critics for the nuts-and-bolts of theater-making. Such knowledge gets applied to this adaptation, which is much more than mere movie homage--it’s a legitimate stage translation. If nothing else, such understanding makes “The Manchurian Candidate” a provocative, if flawed, intellectual exercise.

With Condon’s encouragement, Lahr has updated the setting from the 1950s to “sometime in the near future.” Now the kidnaped American soldiers aren’t in Korea but are members of a Mideast peacekeeping force. Instead of the Red Menace, Washington extremists are paranoid about a “menace” from Japan. But North Korea remains an ominous player on the global stage, just as in Condon’s original. And the concept of a hit man under the control of a foreign government, assassinating politicians? No need to update that nightmare.

Nor does Lahr need to tamper much with Condon’s finest creation, a contemporary Lady Macbeth named Eleanor Iselin who devours her senator husband and war-hero son in the pursuit of political power. Initially, Carrie Snodgress seems slightly intimidated by Angela Lansbury’s classic screen portrait of the Machiavellian mother. But Lahr shrewdly allows the character’s incestuous obsession for her son to be more obvious on stage than it is in the film. Snodgress exploits the perversions, transforming Iselin into an all-too-human monster. Making audiences forget Lansbury is no minor accomplishment.

Tim Barber is less fortunate as returning war hero Raymond Shaw. He seems petrified by Laurence Harvey’s icy screen brilliance. Unlike Snodgress, Barber isn’t freed from the film by Lahr. Had Lahr brought Shaw’s repressed homosexuality to the surface, Barber’s tortured Momma’s boy might have found more compelling acting choices.

However, John Marzilli’s work as the nightmare-driven, veteran Ben Marco is actually more believable than Frank Sinatra’s, who was miscast in the film. And Frank Ashmore as a right-wing xenophobe is the perfect stereotype of a politician-for-hire.

Under-heralded designer John Iacovelli once again masters a complex stage design, reproducing the story’s Chinese puzzle-box structure in a series of Kabuki screens. Musical accompaniment by percussionist Sandy Kaye should also duplicate the sense of a classic Kabuki play, but the chimes tinkle like a soundtrack each time a character is gripped by hypnosis. Each irritating chime reminds us how unnecessary it is for theater to emulate movie effects.

* “The Manchurian Candidate,” West Coast Ensemble, 6240 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends June 5. $20. (213) 871-1052. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.