War a Backdrop for Family’s Dynamics

There are different kinds of theatrical experiences in Los Angeles. Some companies produce vanity theater, others do showcase theater, and still others, sitcom theater. And then there are the theater companies that produce plays for the love of it.

The people who make up these companies have been reared and educated in the world of theater, with its respect for language and the poetic richness of the human experience. One of those groups, the Interact Theatre Company, is resident in the Valley at Theatre Exchange in North Hollywood.

Within the last 18 months, this company of working actors staged one of the big Los Angeles hits of that year in Elmer Rice’s “Counsellor at Law,” a drama of size, dignity and human concern. On Friday night, Interact is opening another play with that kind of stature.

C.P. Taylor’s World War II drama “And a Nightingale Sang” tells the story of a family in Newcastle during the blitz. But don’t think this makes it a war play.

Rachel Griffin, who is producing and also appearing in “Nightingale,” said: “It’s not preachy at all. It’s very much about these people’s lives. It just happens to put them in a time when the stakes are raised. Their daily life is living through war. The war is just there, woven into a very sweet, very character-driven story.”

Director Alan Brooks agreed with Griffin, and added that the play’s strength is that it is only minimally about the traumas of war.

“War has gotten so distant,” Brooks said. “Certainly in this country we haven’t had one on our soil since the Civil War. There are a few moments in the play that will remind people about that, when they hear about distant wars, Bosnia and Iran and all that, and bring it home to them.”

Griffin said she is fascinated with the family members in the play, and their reaction to living with the sound of bombers.

“It’s the ability to cope,” Griffin said, “to adapt to a situation. And their lives continue on. The only time they stop is when they’re being bombed, and then they go back to their lives.”

But there is more to the play than the drama, Brooks added. There is much comedy, and though the family is British they will seem familiar to many audience members.

“They’re an ordinary family,” Brooks said, “but under the microscope of war, it makes them more interesting.”

The play, which was developed through Interact’s reading series, was brought to the company by two of the actors in the play, Doug Ballard, who spent time in Newcastle while in college, and the Welsh-born Sione Owen.

The play, said Brooks, is distinctly suited to the company because of the many interwoven issues--family, the war years and religion--and all their shadings. And the writing is particularly important to Interact.

“We see a lot of stuff that’s done, and very contemporary,” said Griffin, “but maybe doesn’t make use of an actor’s talent in terms of language and poetry. . . . The writing is what sucks you in in the beginning, and gives you the leeway to take these artistic leaps.”

DETAILS

* WHAT: “And a Nightingale Sang.”

* WHERE: Interact Theatre Company, Theatre Exchange, 11855 Hart St., North Hollywood.

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 31.

* HOW MUCH: $17.

* CALL: (213) 466-1767.