THEATER REVIEW : ‘Cycle’ Retains Power in Its Return to L.A.

Robert Schenkkan’s “The Kentucky Cycle,” the first of two Pulitzer Prize-winning epics the Mark Taper Forum presented in 1992, is back on an L.A. stage. The saga of 200 years of fighting over a patch of southeastern Kentucky retains most of its elemental power at Los Angeles City College’s Camino Theatre.

This version of the two-part, six-hours-plus production, with 12 professional actors supplemented by students, offers a chance to note the post-Taper changes that Schenkkan wrote as the play moved to the East Coast.

Most of these changes are in Part 2, especially in “Which Side Are You On?,” eighth of the nine plays in the “Cycle.” Set in 1954, this chapter illustrates turmoil within the miners’ union, with the leader of the local and his son on opposite sides--until the mine explodes. At the Taper, “Which Side” was set entirely within a union hall, but subsequent productions--including this one--diversify the locations. It’s still the most unwieldy chapter in the “Cycle,” especially as events pancake together near the climax, but the revised version is an improvement over the original.

Part 1 of the “Cycle” has one of the most relentless narrative drives in American drama. The play’s first pivotal character, Michael Rowen, is portrayed here by Matthew Kimbrough, who understudied the role at the Taper. In the first two chapters, he’s closer to the age of the role than were his predecessors Charles Hallahan and Stacy Keach, and his performance has a gruff, cutting strength.

A student, Ivan Gonzalez, plays Michael’s son Patrick. He lacks the precision and polish that the role needs. But another student, Autumn DeWilde, is better as Michael’s Cherokee wife, and most of the other key roles are in the hands of top-flight professionals.

Perhaps the most famous of these pros is Carrie Snodgress, especially striking as the indomitable Mary Anne Rowen in “Fire in the Hole.” No less impressive are Tony Maggio as Civil War adventurer Jed Rowen and labor agitator Abe Steinman, and John Marzilli as smooth-talking JT Wells and conflicted union leader Joshua Rowen.

Fred Fate’s staging frequently enters the aisles of the theater, which is small enough to give most of the audience the impression that they too may be swept up in the action. Yet the stage is large enough for the big panoramas. Designer Randall L. Edwards keeps the stage virtually bare for most of Part 1, then uses a platform for the mining scenes in Part 2. The platform isn’t as elaborate as the Taper’s, but it’s more centrally located on the stage.

If you want sets, though, you might as well wait for the miniseries. The stage productions specialize in the magic of bare-bones stories, thrillingly enacted.

Don’t forget that the evening performances start at 7:30, not the customary 8. Because I forgot, I was several minutes late for Part 2.

* “The Kentucky Cycle,” Camino Theatre at Los Angeles City College, 855 N. Vermont, enter the parking lot from Heliotrope Drive, north of Melrose. Part 1: Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays and this Sunday, 2 p.m. Part 2: Fridays-Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; May 7, 2 p.m. Ends May 13. $25. (213) 953-4528. Running time of each part: 3 hours, 15 minutes.