Stage Light

In Stan Lachow’s quartet of one-acts, “New York Bench Plays,” at the Bitter Truth Theatre, only the finale--”A Garden at St. Luke’s”--rises above and beyond the shadow of the ultimate New York bench play, Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story,” and touches the regenerative level of art. Indeed, the rest of the evening is really a long prelude to this stunning scene depicting the coming together of black Harlem and white Kansas mothers grieving at the loss of their sons to AIDS.

It is so much better than this or any summary could suggest, and that is because director David Cox has found actors of uncommon power. Since this is a double-cast production (one set performs Thursdays and Fridays, the other Saturdays and Sundays), we can’t report on actors Erika Cohen and Ryan Sands, but the weekend teaming of Rose Marie Johnson as Ruby from Harlem and Lee Wylde as Dorrie from Kansas is as exciting as acting gets.

Moving far beyond the material’s potential minefield of triteness and sentimentality, Johnson and Wylde explore living portraits in pain and surviving: Johnson, pulsing with a warm spiritual core that can explode when her sense of fairness is outraged; Wylde, her drained, ashen face suggesting an inconsolable sadness, inching toward some kind of human contact when she least expects it.

Lachow, like these actors, explores tender, dangerous ground here, and it renders the previous scenes so much piffle. The opener, “Antiques,” is, again, acted forcefully by T.J. Castronovo and Mike Reynolds (alternating with Michael Ashe and John Goff), but it rambles toward an obvious conflict. “Margaret” is also obvious--from Vi Dupre (alternating with Janet Nicholson) playing a grieving widow to Lachow’s thin dramatization. Weakest of all is “Jeopardy,” in which Roberto Bacalski (alternating with Koury Brown) unbelievably discovers that Lois Weiss’ bag lady (alternating with Sylvia Klein) is his long-lost aunt. The more Lachow strains for laughs, the more false the playing.

In the evening’s strangest touch--which could be easily eliminated and allow the one-acts to speak for themselves--various songs in a faux-Brecht or Brel fashion are sprinkled through the show. Programming differs Thursdays and Fridays, but the weekend pairing of singers Diana Dorer and Joseph Daniel Smith is a huge drag, especially after “Garden,” which already contains the perfect capper in a heart-rending version of “Amazing Grace.”

“New York Bench Plays,” Bitter Truth Theatre, 11050 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Jan. 24. $12-$15. (818) 763-4430. Running time: two hours.