‘Black Star’: Tangled in a Long Lasso

Paige Giffin has pulled a sly trick in writing an old-fashioned melodrama with a feminist base. Her “Black Star,” at Stages, recounts in linear style the escapades of four women of varying backgrounds caught alone, and greatly in danger, in the Old West, facing oater stereotypes both blatantly evil and absurdly tacky.

It begins with Kate (Patti Cumby), six-shooter at her hip, Stetson at a jaunty rake, selling stolen government bonds to the decidedly dastardly Jim Walker (Ken Jaedicke). At the same moment, just off the stage from back East are Mary (Cynthia Ryanen), a farm widow high-tailing it to California; Emily (Joy Langwell), a pregnant upper-class snob; and Sam (Amber Jackson), a young woman who never explains where she’s from.

When the latter three leave on the next stage, the coach is robbed by Walker, who leaves the three to die, tied up in the wilderness. They are fortuitously rescued by Kate, who then kills Walker, is tried for his murder and is rescued from the jail by the other three women before her hanging. The plot doesn’t get less involved thereafter; it only gets more rococo and sometimes muddled as the quartet of heroines slowly bests the vicious villains.

Giffin has written the script in screenplay style, with extremely short scenes, more settings than you can shake a Peacemaker at, and enough coincidental plot twists and gratuitous revelations to have pleased the most ornate of 19th century melodramatists. And, like them, she often leaves plot lines untied, such as the nasty scars on Sam’s back, which the women stare at aghast but which are never explained. Wasn’t it Ibsen who said that if you bring a gun on in the first act, you’d best fire it in the third?

The play is too complicated to have much dramatic impact, but it does have the rousing, thunderous impact of its genre. Director Kirk Huff keeps everything moving, particularly the impressive scene changes. These changes, in Kreg Donahoe’s fine design, are another example of Stages’ technical knack, with cabin interiors, hotel fronts, a jail with a cell that looks out into the real starry night outside the theater’s back door, a drawing room, etc., all swiftly replacing one another.

The Wild West feminists are excellent, developing characterizations that are honest and valid in their solidity. Laura Orlow and Tiina Wiles are equally good as inmates of an “illegal parlor house.”

*

Huff has not gotten the same quality from some of the men in the cast, most of whom look and sound like something out of 1930s Saturday matinee westerns. Jaedicke, and Eddie Majalca as Walker’s disgustingly nasty brother, a federal marshal, almost chew up the massive scenery with leering and grumbling of their lines. Thomas Corsaut is an unconvincing bumpkin as a store owner, and Gavin Carlton, as a doltish, horny slob of a deputy, fares even worse with his low-comedy burlesque turn.

Glenn Heoffner is effective as the old man to whom Mary tells the story, although the knot finally tying them seems a bit of a stretch. As the honest sheriff who hounds the ladies over the trails, Spider Madison is believable, and Steve Mayeda is most believable, in spite of his stereotypical role as an Indian warrior who tracks the women with stoic, monotone wisdom.

* “Black Star,” Stages, 1188 N. Fountain Way, Ste. E, Anaheim. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends June 15. $8. (714) 630-3059. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

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“Black Star,”

Glenn Hoeffner: old man

Cynthia Ryanen: Mary

Patti Cumby: Kate

Joy Langwell: Emily

Amber Jackson: Sam

Ken Jaedicke: Jim Walker

Gavin Carlton: deputy

Spider Madison: sheriff

Steve Mayeda: Lightfoot

Thomas Corsaut: store owner

Eddie Majalca: marshal

Laura Orlow: Kitty

Tiina Wiles: Sugar

A Stages production of a western melodrama by Paige Giffin, produced by Mitch Faris, directed by Kirk Huff. Scenic/sound design: Kreg Donahoe. Lighting design: Dan Michelson, Jon Gaw. Costumes: Susana Garcia.