‘Beggars’ Weighted Down by Heavy Brutality

Families are getting nastier, at least onstage. To wit: John Patrick Shanley’s “Beggars in the House of Plenty,” now produced by Asylum Theatre at the Improv, sends the conventional family drama to new depths of brutality.

Shanley’s Irish American Bronx clan makes the Tyrones of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” look like rank amateurs in the dysfunction department. Narrator (and likely authorial stand-in) Johnny (Paul Marius) was a pyromaniac tot who grew into an emotionally paralyzed adult. Pop (Martin Cassidy) was a thoroughly sadistic and narcoleptic slaughterhouse worker who took perverse glee in terrorizing older child Joey (Pierson Blaetz). And feckless Ma (Mary Eileen O’Donnell) was unable to stem the household’s slide into mayhem.

While it’s hard to believe this is the same writer who penned the light comedy “Moonstruck,” Shanley has here devised a stylized, fractured dramatic style that telescopes years of painful reminiscence into three brief acts. What’s missing, however, is the humor or lyricism that has leavened more enduring contributions to the genre. The longer it plays, the more “Beggars” comes to resemble an inexorable weight rather than a fully formed piece of dramatic writing.

Director Kelly Clark’s somewhat sloppy staging, marked by frequent miscues and generally unshaded performances, does little to blunt the blow of Shanley’s hammer.

* “Beggars in the House of Plenty,” Asylum Theatre at the Improv, 8156 Melrose Ave., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends July 27. $10. (213) 651-2583. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.