THEATER REVIEWS : ‘Gamma Rays’ Radiates Intensity : At Alternative Repertory, the director’s sharp focus is complemented by the constrained action and the intimate staging.

Playwright Paul Zindel was still teaching high-school science in the early ‘70s when his first play opened on Broadway. It was named after a science experiment, “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.” It also was semi-autobiographical. The play’s Beatrice, like Zindel’s own mother, continually embraces money-making schemes.

The Pulitzer Prize-winner is a sad and angry play by an angry young man. He finds within his own world the heartbreaking frustration that gives the play its core as well as the dim glimmer of hope that gives it its underlying sense of eventual redemption.

“Marigolds” is not an easy play to stage. Mother Beatrice is unabashedly nasty. Daughter Tillie, the play’s heroine, is a dreamer without emotional strength to back it up. The other daughter, Ruth, is a Beatrice-in-training.

In a sharply delineated production at Alternative Repertory Theatre, director Ernest Albert Figueroa uses the simplicity of constrained action to form a miniature portrait of the trio seen darkly through Zindel’s cracked mirror.

David Scaglione’s evocatively scuzzy setting, lighted with painterly strokes by Looi Goring, helps give the action the isolation it needs. The small ART stage is just right to keep the focus sharp.

Tillie, whose only momentary hope is winning a school science competition with her mutated marigolds, is played by Dina Bartello with a rewarding sense of wonder, laced with a feistiness just beginning to manifest itself. Bartello’s adolescent victim will survive, but not without deep scars.

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Laurie Messerly is Ruth, the pretty daughter who is Beatrice’s favorite--until the mother’s pride in Tillie’s achievement violently switches her allegiance. Messerly’s image of Ruth’s unthinking selfishness and vanity is saved by the underlying charm that has made Ruth popular at school.

The solidity of the production is provided by the controlled power of Gwenda Deacon’s Beatrice. Beatrice’s frustration at a totally failed life, her inability to handle the smallest trauma and her psychological instability have a jagged, razor-sharp edge in Deacon’s performance. The few brief glimpses of perverse humor Deacon allows her only add to the resounding reality of a warped woman who exclaims, “I hate the world.”

Kelly Dunn, in two small roles--the ancient crone Beatrice is paid to take care of and Tillie’s ditsy opponent in the contest--is as effective as Figueroa’s in-your-face take on Zindel’s quirky glance at women at war with themselves.

* “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,” Alternative Repertory Theatre, 1636 S. Grand Ave., Santa Ana. Thursday through Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. Ends June 18. $16. (714) 836-7929. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Dina Bartello: Tillie

Gwenda Deacon: Beatrice

Laurie Messerly: Ruth

Kelly Dunn: Nanny/Janice

An Alternative Repertory Theatre production of Paul Zindel’s drama, produced by Kathleen A. Bryson. Directed by Ernest Albert Figueroa. Scenic design: David Scaglione. Lighting design: Looi Goring. Costume design: Abel Zeballos. Sound design: Gary Christensen. Production stage manager: Todd Alan Fuessel.