‘Pericles’: Inventive Maritime Adventure

Bravo to FreightTrain Shakespeare. In “Pericles,” the young Culver City troupe has taken Shakespeare’s seldom-seen romance and turned it into a dazzling theatrical odyssey.

There’s hardly a dull moment in this fairy tale of incest and exile, largely because director Tom Quaintance and his hard-working 13-member cast grasp that imagination, not extravagance, is what counts in the theater. (Speaking of hard work, the company is running this show in rotating repertory with “Henry V.”)

Steve Rankin, who has a bit of Kenneth Branagh’s boyish athleticism, plays the title hero, a prince who flees his native Tyre after discovering the incestuous secret of Antiochus (Franc Ross), a neighboring king. Thus begins a rollicking maritime adventure that has Pericles finding a queen (Judy Waters), losing a daughter (Deirdre Imershein) and eluding death through his own wit and courage.

Such epic sprawl might have vanquished a less inventive company, but Quaintance always finds ways to stay one step ahead of the audience. For instance, Gower, the lone narrator of the text, is here split into a three-actor Brechtian chorus (Maria Spassoff, Michael Bryan French and Gregg Koski) sporting suitably eclectic attire.

In the midst of a first-act sword duel, the cast very quickly and deftly acts out a similar scene from the end of “Hamlet,” complete with a poisoned goblet and snatches of dialogue from that tragedy’s denouement. It’s a smart, funny twist that’s over in a few seconds--and yet it delivers so much pleasure to the stunned audience that there’s never any question whether it was worth it.

This is the kind of production that restores one’s faith in Shakespeare on a shoestring.

* “Pericles,” FreightTrain Shakespeare at Gascon Center Theatre, 8735 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Saturday, Wednesday, Thursday, June 24, 29, 30, July 1 , 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. $10-$12. (310) 955-5363. Running time: 2 hours , 30 minutes.

Land Ark Garage Treads Water

There’s water, water everywhere in two new one-acts by the Land Ark Garage Theater at Theatre/Theater, but unfortunately there’s nothing much to watch.

The first, “Holy Water,” by Land Ark co-founder Gene H. Butler, concerns Johnny (Rod Arrants), a harried middle-aged man who has fled his boring job and marriage by taking a weeklong bubble bath. Following his own weird brand of bliss, Johnny now makes bad plumbing jokes and hums “The Girl From Ipanema” while shooting bubbles with a red squirt gun.

This aimless reverie is interrupted--not a moment too soon--by Roger (Butler, in a sharp bit of comic underplaying), a timid baker sent at the behest of Johnny’s angry wife. Johnny finally sheds his slap-happy facade and tells Roger, in the would-be climax: “Six days ago I died, murdered by the fear of living.”

A more literal murder forms the basis for Butler’s other one-act, “The Grand Old Blue.” Here, two outlaws, Jesse (Angelo McCabe) and Frank (Butler), sit at the oceanside (hence the title) and argue over their roles in a botched robbery. Not surprisingly, this soon descends into a contrived dialogue about the nature of freedom, and the freedom of nature, with the sea invoked as a kind of catchall metaphor.

Despite a few nicely written passages, both plays, as directed by Butler, strain for a cosmic significance that stays well out of reach. “Holy Water,” in particular, seems to be aiming for Christopher Durang-type zaniness but winds up playing much like a half-baked college skit.

The evening is, you might say, a wash.

* “Holy Water” and “The Grand Old Blue,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays 7 p.m. Ends June 26. (213) 469-9689. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.