Defanged ‘Wolf’ Tackles Epic-Sized Issues

Human Nature is an issues-oriented theater troupe based in Petrolia, a town of 500 people in Humboldt County, south of Eureka. The group’s last show focused on a vital regional issue--restoration of the salmon runs--and reportedly toured the Northwest with much success.

Now the company has come to the biggest city in the West with “The Wolf at the Door,” a musical that tries to tackle urban as well as rural issues, at the Ivar Theatre in Hollywood. But it’s a tame, defanged “Wolf.”

Two families live in a fictional city. The “traditional” family consists of a husband who’s on the fast track within a national environmental organization, his wife who thinks he’s selling out and their young daughter. These three often interact with a “nontraditional” family of six homeless adults who live in a vague urban location that’s threatened with pollution from a planned incinerator.

Meanwhile, in the Rockies, a family of wolves is taken from their home in Alberta to Yellowstone, where they’re in trouble if they stray outside park boundaries.

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Only one character bridges the gap between the city and the country. A Montana rancher who’s worried about the imported wolves also is the father of the “traditional” family’s wife. When he calls on his urban kin, he bears gifts of beef, not realizing that his daughter is now a vegetarian.

Yet another set of characters, a “Mythic Wolf” and “Mythic Man,” also have a few scenes in which they’re bound together and try to get along.

“Wolf” is stuffed with enough characters and issues for an epic that is three times longer, so it’s no surprise that much of the story feels extremely sketchy. This material might work in the hands of skilled theatrical cartoonists like the San Francisco Mime Troupe, from which Human Nature’s founding duo, David Simpson and Jane Lapiner, sprouted many years ago. But here it’s a no-go.

Simpson’s script feels scattered, like a rough draft. The first act finale is a pointless and distracting retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story. The villains--who often are among the juiciest characters in the Mime Troupe’s work--are either offstage or utterly anonymous here. And the good guys, especially the meticulously multicultural and fresh-scrubbed homeless crew, are stifled by the earnest messages they spout.

Lapiner’s staging is more polished than the script. The actors display strong movement and musical skills, and a four-piece band led by Zachary sounds good. Although most of the design is rudimentary, the wolf costumes use real Canadian wolf hides. A program note explains the justification for this: Native hunters kill and skin these wolves as part of their economy; here, at least, the hides are used in a show that honors wolves.

* “The Wolf at the Door,” Ivar Theatre, 1605 N. Ivar, Hollywood. Tonight-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. $15. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.