Tears and Bonding in ‘Reading Group’

“The Reading Group” at the Complex’s Flight Theater was developed in improv workshops with the cast by playwright-director Bernadette Armstrong. That development process--or lack of it--is evident.

In the play, which was inspired by an actual program in a Massachusetts correctional institution, four female convicts (Marianne Jeff, Kathleen McEntee, Monique Mannen and Karen Halligan) are granted early release on the condition that they participate in an intensive, 15-week literary workshop presided over by a civic-minded Judge (Karen Ragan-George). Their assigned book, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” sparks a tautological and seemingly interminable discussion about the duality of human nature, the importance of love, and the necessity of taking responsibility for one’s “monsters.”

Fifteen solid weeks of discussing gothic gore would put a plaster saint in a foul mood--which might explain the level of high-decibel kvetching that results from the assignment. Predictably, the women complain, bond, launch into tearful confessional monologues, then complain and bond some more, all to the accompaniment of the kind of stupefying jargon that gives psychobabble a bad name.

Of the cast, McEntee is the most proficient at the brand of studied extemporariness imposed upon the proceedings by Armstrong, who too often mistakes laxity for spontaneity in this well-intended but sadly misguided theatrical coffee klatch.

* “The Reading Group,” the Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 23. $13. (213) 658-4000. Running time: 2 hours