Effective Rendering of Shaw’s ‘House’

“Heartbreak House” is more than a refuge for the lovelorn--in George Bernard Shaw’s somber 1920 drama, it’s a graveyard for all the dead ends of Western civilization.

Jessica Kubzansky’s handsome staging for the Colony Studio Theatre precisely delineates the human failings and subversively upended social conventions in Shaw’s scathing depiction of intelligence and wit squandered on meaningless pursuits.

On the eve of World War I, a dizzying tangle of sexual intrigue elevated to heights of jaded acceptability accompanies the reunion of an eccentric family. In nuanced ensemble performances, the decidedly Bohemian patriarch--cranky but clear-sighted Capt. Shotover (Robert Budaska)--radiates disdain for his daughters’ choices in life. One of them (Jodi Carlisle) has married an unseen numskull; the other (Laura Wernette) wed a liar (Silas Cooper), who has cruelly toyed with the affections of a recently impoverished ingenue (Bonita Friedericy. Discovering his treachery propels the girl into the sad but practical choice of marrying the ruthless capitalist (John Ross Clark) who ruined her honorable father (Charles Howerton).

Naturally, sophisticated banter and surprise reversals of character abound. The production pulls no punches with Shaw’s deeply pessimistic prognosis for the human condition, in which these characters embrace the explosive finale out of sheer relief that something momentous has finally happened. The mounting sense that war is the inevitable outcome of a human spirit smothered by impossibly tight social constraints is effectively evoked, though Shaw’s moralizing sometimes sags under its own allegorical weight. Worse yet, he might even be right.

* “Heartbreak House,” Colony Studio Theatre, 1944 Riverside Drive, Silver Lake. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Nov. 24. $20-$22. (213) 665-3011. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.