VALLEY WEEKEND : THEATER / NOTES : ‘Subject Was Roses’ Stays All in the Family : Frank Gilroy’s play about a dysfunctional couple and their son stars a close-knit, real-life clan at the Whitefire Theater.

The family that stays together, plays together. The proof is in a rare revival of Frank Gilroy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “The Subject Was Roses,” opening Saturday at Sherman Oaks’ Whitefire Theater.

Gilroy’s autobiographical comedy-drama is about pampered son Timmy Cleary, who returns from World War II a changed and much more mature young man, and the effect he has on his father and mother, John and Nettie Cleary. The family has trouble sticking together.

Derrel Maury and husband-and-wife team Arthur Bernard and Madgel Dean are a real-life family playing the Clearys in this new production, but they are nothing like their dramatic counterparts. Along with son Chris, a Paramount construction grip who has done the sets, daughter Dena and daughter-in-law Elizabeth, both of whom are helping, this is a close-knit, jovial and dedicated group.

The whole clan, actually named Friedman, gathered around father Arthur as soon as he announced his intention to produce the play, which he and Madgel had seen in its original 1964 production. The play, Arthur said, “never left me. It occurred to me this might be my last hurrah, and it all just came together like that. All I had to do was say I wanted to do it, and the whole family converged on it.”

Arthur, for 35 years a professor in the department of theater arts at UCLA, said he and wife Madgel have a “long-term investment in each other. Whatever flare-ups and everything else, we come back to that base because we basically just love each other. Now, the Clearys don’t love each other, but they’re glued together. We need each other for our sustenance, but we don’t need each other to make that glue work, as the dysfunctional Clearys do.”

Actors have to know each other pretty well to pull off this kind of intimate play, said son Derrel. “I’ve known these people all me life,” he said with a smile. “Once we assume our characters, it’s like falling off a log. Like in the play, when I’m arguing with my mom. . . .”

“ That’s natural,” said Madgel, finishing the sentence. She went on to say that every family has its ups and downs. “There are always moments . . . moments of conflict,” she said. “You can draw on that sort of experience. In creating these characters, we’ve been able to achieve some kind of ensemble much quicker than most people could who haven’t had the long association.”

The production’s director, Myrl A. Schreibman, admits to a strong bond with the Friedmans. In addition to having been a producer of “On the Waterfront” on Broadway, and working as an award-winning director for film, television and stage, Schreibman has since 1991 been academic administrator at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. At one time he was a student and a teaching assistant for Friedman at UCLA.

“To some degree,” Schreibman said, “it’s like directing my own family.”

The play, he said, is about a man and wife whose marriage is not based on love. “Their son, who was the only glue they had, comes back into their lives, and eventually says he’s going to split them up,” he said. “You could find these people on Sally Jessy Raphael or Jerry Springer. That’s why it has relevance today.”

* “The Subject Was Roses,” Whitefire Theater, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Nov. 19. $12-$15. (213) 660-8587.

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If the Clearys of “Roses” are slightly dysfunctional, the Helmers of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” the latest offering in A Noise Within’s rotating repertory season in Glendale this Saturday, are much, much more. According to director Mark Rucker, when the play was written in the late 19th Century, the themes were shocking. They may no longer stun an audience but, he said, “the play is so compelling that any kind of theme or message comes alive again. It feels completely fresh and new.”

* “A Doll’s House,” A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Call for repertory schedule. Ends Dec. 17. $18-$22. (818) 546-1924.