Aiming for Urgency in ‘El Hajj Malik’

“El Hajj Malik (El Shabazz),” at the Inglewood Playhouse, is N.R. Davidson’s visceral but somewhat formless drama about the life of Malcolm X. It traces the black activist’s brief and turbulent life from his birth in Detroit in 1925 to his murder in 1965.

Director Spencer Scott and a crack ensemble cast lend sweep and urgency to Davidson’s elegiac verse piece, which transpires in a series of monologues and group recitatives reminiscent of a bluesy “Spoon River Anthology.” Along with various other characters, the four men and four women in the cast all portray Malcolm X himself at various intervals in Davidson’s expressionistic ebb and flow.

Davidson’s intensely poetic language has undeniable power, but his sense of dramatic structure falters. Certain sequences, while effective as actors’ moments, go on far too long and seem dangerously extraneous to the main action. Two lengthy, drug-fueled monologues delivered by the youthful Malcolm; a fun but superfluous gossip session among three women characters; and unwieldy exposition about the precepts and lore of the Black Muslim religion are cases in point.

The play is the second original offering in the inaugural season of the Unity Players Ensemble, a group dedicated to presenting new African American works. While seriously unfocused at points, “El Hajj Malik” remains an eloquent call to activism by this up-and-coming company.

* “El Hajj Malik (El Shabazz),” Inglewood Playhouse, 740 Warren Ave. (in Edward Vincent Park), Inglewood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Dec. 21. $10. (213) 860-3208. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

Time Catches Up With ‘Tiger’s’ Tale When first produced some 30 years ago, Don Peterson’s “Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?,” the vehicle that helped establish Al Pacino as a star, must have seemed like a cutting-edge examination of directionless youth. However, a lot of water has flowed through the welfare net in the past three decades. Now, with endemic homelessness, burgeoning poverty rates and the urban crack explosion, Peterson’s drama about the travails of teenage drug addicts seems quaintly dated.

The setting is a rehabilitation center, where habitual young drug users are routinely sent by the courts. Hip young teacher Mr. Winters (Jay Michael Fraley) struggles to make a difference in the lives of his strung-out students, many of whom seem hellbent on disaster. Linda (Andrea Kim Walker), a cynical hooker, just might find redemption through her love for fellow addict Conrad (Lamar Vandyke). However, the tragic fate that befalls tortured head case Bickham (Michael Piscitelli) looms for all these outcasts.

Rather than attempt to update their material, co-directors Gregory Cohen and Samantha Swaim merely turn up the volume level in this very loud and highly histrionic staging. Amid the general over-acting, the young actors portraying the addicts display such genuine fervor they occasionally sweep us away in moments of passion and power.

* “Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?,” 2nd Stage Theater, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Dark Dec. 15-Jan. 8. Ends Jan. 25. $15. (213) 876-8418. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.