Missing Links? Musical Unites Three Famously Lost Women

Aviator Amelia Earhart, mystery writer Agatha Christie and evangelist-faith healer Aimee Semple McPherson had little in common besides a historical anomaly--all three disappeared (in Earhart’s case, permanently) under circumstances that were never explained.

Tugging at this tenuous biographical thread, “Vanishing Point,” a fanciful new musical by Robert Hartmann and Scott Keys at West Coast Ensemble, transports the three famous women to an imaginary deserted isle. There they undertake a metaphysical exploration of time, space and the psyche in something of a cross between “On the Verge” and “Gilligan’s Island.”

As they rummage through artifacts of their lives that mysteriously wash ashore, each castaway wrestles with her principal issues in reflective--and sometimes poignant--song. For McPherson (Valerie Doran, belting out gutsy gospel numbers), her religious calling has exacted a terrible toll on her sexuality. Crooning with a more meditative Celtic influence, Christie (Jan Sheldrick) is haunted by her husband’s adultery and its assault on her domestic values (after her real-life 11-day disappearance, Christie was discovered registered under the name of her husband’s mistress in a strange hotel, and pleaded amnesia). As Earhart, Melanie Wingert sports the most accomplished singing voice, lyrically recounting the aviatrix’s struggles with her ambivalence about marriage, career and fame.

For the most part, director Richard Israel coaxes engaging performances from his cast, though their very different singing styles make for problematic harmonizing. The most successful numbers are the solos (Dan Belzer provides effective keyboard accompaniment).

Yet the show’s vaguely defined central notion of the unifying “Vanishing Point . . . where everything comes together” remains shrouded in fuzzy logic, and the creators never find a true convergence in the separate lives of these groundbreaking women. Basing the opening and closing song, “A Is For . . . ,” on the alliterative pseudo-connection of the protagonists’ first names is less than compelling--”arbitrary” too often springs to mind to complete the verse.

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* “Vanishing Point,” West Coast Ensemble, 522 N. La Brea Ave., L.A. Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m., this weekend and Aug. 7-8, 21-22; Thursdays, Fridays, 8 p.m., July 29-30, Aug. 12-13, 26-27. Ends Aug. 27. $20. (323) 535-0022. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.