‘Hadleyburg’ Shows Promise

In “Hadleyburg, U.S.A.,” at Mojo Ensemble, Jewish businessman Harry Rosen (Ken Dolinky) petitions his local school board to remove a painting of Christ from the high school assembly hall. Harry simply doesn’t want his teen-age son to feel like an outsider in his own school.

Harry has lived happily in the economically depressed but tightly knit town of Hadleyburg, N.Y., for years and feels completely accepted by the Christian townspeople. He’s especially chummy with Mayor Tim Hebert (Ray Rawlings), a backslapping good ol’ boy who has no idea of the subterranean forces festering in his community--or in his own family, for that matter. Harry’s request stirs up a hornet’s nest of bigotry and anti-Semitism that poisons the town. As the press moves in, along with a few fanatical outsider agitators, events spiral out of control.

Based on a true incident, this innately provocative premise could have been a thought-provoking exploration of the juggernaut forces of bigotry. Unfortunately, playwright Matthew Witten overshoots the mark in this overly broad treatment, which emerges as more of a children’s cautionary tale than a mature drama. Director Michele Martin’s cartoonish staging exacerbates the play’s lack of subtlety. The performances, while sincere, are similarly overblown.

Even in this cumbersome incarnation, Witten’s play scores serious points about an emotionally charged subject. However, the palpable promise of “Hadleyburg, U.S.A.” remains, at present, unfulfilled.

* “Hadleyburg, U.S.A.,” Mojo Ensemble, 1540 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends July 30. $12-$15. (213) 960-1604. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

‘Vieux Carre’ Is Frankly Williams

By the mid-’70s, Tennessee Williams thought the time was ripe to deal openly with homosexuality instead of approaching it obliquely through symbol and metaphor. Societal taboos were finally relaxing. But perhaps it was Williams’ unabashed frankness about this still controversial subject that closed “Vieux Carre” so quickly when it opened on Broadway in 1977.

Now playing at the Open Fist, “Vieux Carre” is set in a New Orleans French Quarter boardinghouse during the late 1930s. The play is a veritable devil’s brew of eccentric Southern characters, all with the distinctive Williams stamp. In the sultry, steamy atmosphere of the Quarter, anything goes--a lot of sex, yes--the kind of sex sparked by the awesome destructive force of loneliness.

Gaunt, gay artist Nightingale (Louis Balestra), obviously in the last stages of consumption, still finds the energy to prowl the streets in search of carnal companionship. Refined Yankee college girl Jane (Arizona Brooks) puts up with the boorishness and neglect of her junkie boyfriend Tye (Matt Walsh) for those few moments of vibrant physical connection.

“People die of loneliness,” opines mad landlady Mrs. Wire (Dalene Young), the perversely maternal proprietor of these lower depths. And die they do, unloved and unsung. The wide-eyed Writer (Christian S. Leffler), a transparently autobiographical portrait of the youthful Williams, ironically finds an unprecedented new freedom in the midst of madness and moral contagion but realizes that the only rational course is, ultimately, escape.

Directors Martha Demson and Burr Steers capture Williams’ Southernness without lapsing into caricature, and the cast brings a fine sense of naturalistic urgency to the proceedings. One can almost hear the soft, awful groaning of loneliness in the walls of Tom Brophy’s splendidly ramshackle set, the perfect environment for so much human desolation. And Bill Lackemacher’s effectively murky lighting keeps those dark corners in shadow, where they belong.

A thoughtful production, this “Vieux Carre” is an opportunity to see Williams in the raw, unfettered by the societal constraints that had previously bound him.

* “Vieux Carre,” Open Fist, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends July 30. $15. (213) 882-6912. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.