Stifled by Southern Flaws

John Lewter is no Tennessee Williams.

Lewter’s “The Nature of the Beast,” in its world premiere at the Ventura Court Theatre, contains echoes of Williams’ South: dysfunctional families with picture-perfect homes, handsome young men with angry undersides, lovely women with questionable morality. But somehow Lewter’s tale, set in a small Georgia town during the Korean War, is overwhelmed and winds up faint and muffled.

The hero, Delbert Gavin, is a 21-year-old who has been taking care of his mother, sister and the family business since his father died five years ago. As played by stage newcomer Nick Cornish, Del wavers between being content with his responsibilities and busting to get out.

At a backwater beer joint, he becomes enthralled with Shyeeta Duggins (Carol Hickey), a prostitute. The rest of Act I is the drawn-out prologue to the inevitable: bringing the unacceptable woman home for dinner to meet his family’s catty women.

To Hickey’s credit, she makes Shyeeta an engaging character, despite little on the page that makes her original, likable or strong. Without her presence, there would be no reason for Del to fall so head-over-heels.

Hickey’s Shyeeta also gives the play its gravitational center, though the more natural center point is Del. Cornish, however much he looks the part, isn’t seasoned enough to keep this fractured play from falling into pieces.

Of course, director Michael Cooper could have reined in things. The Gavin women--mother Caroline (Barbara Allyne Bennet) and widowed sister Alberta (Danielle Aubuchon)--are stretched thin between the stereotypes they rely upon and the contrary characters Lewter wants them to be.

Bartender Pharaoh Babylon (Africanus Roscius) is allowed to substitute volume for a real demonstration of power. Don Cummings, however, turns in a wonderfully smarmy performance as the barfly Robbie.

The play, staged by Canyon Theatre company, has mixed production values. Sound cues were often abrupt and the lighting unremarkable. The structure of Joaquin Navarro’s set worked nicely, though the front porch occasionally was overloaded with actors. The grass-meets-sky backdrop was neither realistic nor stylized.

The same could be said of “The Nature of the Beast.” Thematically, it is blurry. Rather than providing clarity, a twist in the final scene saps the play of what could be its most telling moments.

BE THERE

The Nature of the Beast at Ventura Court Theatre, 12417 Ventura Court, Studio City. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. $15. (818) 789-8499.