A Muddled Equation

Math anxiety, girls and math, peer pressure, cultural and historical sexism--all important and timely issues. But trying to cover them all in a 50-minute play turns out to have been overly ambitious, even for such a top-quality outfit as the Mark Taper Forum’s P.L.A.Y. (Performing for Los Angeles Youth).

In Kelly Stuart’s busy message comedy, “The Square Root of Terrible,” young Gloria (Vanessa Marquez) is a brainy, math-loving kid who endures ridicule and abuse from classmates and especially from her big brother Oscar (Thom Rivera) for being smart. Oscar’s friend Axel (Jose Restrepo) wants to show her he cares, but he doesn’t want Oscar’s scorn.

Not even Gloria’s very traditional housewife mom (Christine Deaver) offers support. To her, girls are valued when they are quiet and good. Mom also believes it’s a woman’s place to serve the men in the family and orders Gloria to fetch and carry for Oscar.

At school, Gloria is shunned by classmates Alice (La Sondra Zarif) and especially by Lily (Tiffany Fraser), who doesn’t want Gloria’s “nerd molecules rubbing off” on her. Gloria is so miserable, in fact, that she asks her teacher (Steven Sennett) not to call on her in class. Instead, she decides to hide her brains and copy Lily, who agrees to teach her “to be a girl instead of a dork.”

The play’s first problem is that Gloria’s plight, while intended to arouse the sympathy and understanding of the audience, is played too successfully for laughs. So, despite the overly prolonged abuse Gloria suffers--emotional and physical torment by her brother, Lily’s ridicule--the comic context ensures it doesn’t have to be taken seriously. This despite the fact that Marquez projects vulnerability, enhanced by her fragile appearance. Yet the acts of meanness seemed hilarious to fifth-graders at a recent school performance.

Setting up easy laughs also risks audience restlessness when things become more frankly educational, as they do with the entrance of 4th century Egyptian female mathematician Hypatia (Deaver again), who says she represents “the missing equation”--all the forgotten great women of mathematics and science “disappeared by time.”

That’s not her only purpose, however. In a development that turns this into a very busy play indeed, Hypatia wants Gloria to know that “alien numbers” are taking over the world and will cause mischief with each wrong answer students give.

One mistake turns everyone into blockheads, literally; another causes Gloria and Lily to merge into one person. It’s up to Gloria to defeat the alien number monster--an inventive visual effect--by finding “the square root of terrible” and by persuading her classmates to see math’s value.

Hypatia helps by clearing a lot of empty, junk thoughts out of everyone’s head, another imaginative visual effect.

When it’s over, Gloria can be herself, Lily realizes she doesn’t have to play dumb and Mom has enrolled in “rocket science school” as a manifestation of her new-found realization of self-worth.

That Stuart’s play overreaches is not reflected in the performances by the assured and professional adult cast, directed by Corey Madden. Production values, too, are first-rate, from Rachel Hauck’s dramatic, geometrically shaped set, Candice Cain’s expressive costumes and Teresa R. Enroth’s expert lighting to composer Peter Golub’s terrific, multi-instrument score, skillfully performed live by Joseph Berardi.

* “The Square Root of Terrible,” California Science Center, 700 State Drive, Los Angeles, Saturday and March 14, 1:30 p.m. Also at Clinica Las Americas, Loyola Marymount University, 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, March 21, 12:30 p.m., and Children’s Center for the Arts, 325 S. Oak Knoll Ave., Pasadena, March 28, 12:30 p.m. Free, except that admission to the California Science Center applies. (213) 972-7674.

Now You Give It a Try: Blank Theatre Company, which has frequently earned acclaim for its adult dramatic plays, is now accepting submissions for its sixth annual Young Playwrights Festival.

Winning plays will be performed over two nights in adult public workshop productions by theater professionals in June. Past festivals have featured such actors as Noah Wyle, Edward Asner and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Each winning playwright will be assigned a professional writer as mentor to help prepare the work for performance; some past winning plays have also ended up as full-scale, mainstage productions.

The rules: Playwrights must be age 19 or younger on April 6; original plays can be any length, on any subject. Include a cover sheet with play title, playwright’s name, date of birth, school (if any), home address and home phone number.

* Young Playwrights Festival scripts must be postmarked no later than April 6. Blank Theatre Co., 1301 Lucile Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90026. (213) 662-7734; or visit Web site: https://www.primenet.com/~portal/

Songs From the Heart: The All Saints Children’s Choir will perform two concerts Sunday as a fund-raiser for the group’s Northern California tour later this month. The choir, directed by Stephanie Naife, is made up of 160 children, 60 of whom will sing at the California Music Educators Assn. Convention in Sacramento and also in San Francisco.

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* All Saints Children’s Choir, All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid Ave., Pasadena, Sunday, 10:15 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Donation. (626) 796-1172.