A Well-Staged ‘Oneonta’ Can Still Be Dysfunctional

Even if you find yourself hating David Beaird’s deep-fried Southern Gothic “900 Oneonta,” now in a paradoxically excellent production at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, it’s not hard to see why it enjoyed an encouraging critical reception--as well as a best new play Olivier Award nomination--in its 1994 London premiere.

The English love to see their worst nightmares of American greed and squalor confirmed. And in fact, who doesn’t relish that spectator sport? How to explain the hosannas offered up to “Not About Nightingales,” the heretofore unproduced 1938 Tennessee Williams prison melodrama? How to explain Monday’s Tony nominations for “Nightingales,” a recent London-to-Broadway transfer?

Playwright Beaird, whose Hollywood credits include “My Chauffeur” and the short-lived “Key West” for television, had a less happy experience with “900 Oneonta” in New York than in London. References to the 1996 Circle Repertory Company production, staged by the author, remain notably absent from the Odyssey program notes.

Beaird directed the new Los Angeles version, too. He has done well by it. Sometimes a smart production can transcend a self-consciously junky play. Sometimes it can’t.

A coyly depraved update on “The Little Foxes,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and a few dozen others, the play takes its title from the address of its Bastrop, La., setting. Straight off we find ourselves post-heart attack and mid-rant with the patriarch of a “deformed litter of sluts and morons,” Dandy (Leland Crooke, in first-rate old-guy makeup). He’s a racist, sexist, widely feared multimillionaire, the Big Daddy of a small oil town.

Dandy’s dyin’, and plans to leave the family fortune to the most obviously broken-down of his kin, grandson Tiger (Ben Daniels). Tiger has a child coming, by way of his mistress, Palace (Khadijah Karriem, whose barreling energy clears the air, momentarily, in Act 2). Tiger’s brother, Gitlo (Jon Cryer, in high snivel), doesn’t like the prospect of poverty, and he’s not alone.

So goeth the scheming. As “900 Oneonta” grinds along from reversal to reversal, cancer revelation to incest revelation, it doesn’t so much gather a queasy sense of momentum as simply end up crowding itself. Every screaming match plays like an Act 1 climax. Judging from this material, Beaird may have the will to write a nasty black comedy, but his language--at once crudely outrageous and deadly dull--goes clunk, clunk, clunk.

Crooke’s Dandy cuts through the overall crud like a razor. It is not often you find a performance that’s over-the-top yet carefully calibrated, and Crooke’s is just that. But then, everyone in director Beaird’s ensemble is at least good. Terrence Beasor’s wise owl of a family executor adds an extra dash of poignancy. Up against this much hot air, Beasor’s like a cool breeze.

* “900 Oneonta,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. (also 2 p.m. May 16 and June 13). Ends June 20. $18.50-$22.50. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

Leland Crooke: Dandy

Peggy Ann Blow: Carrie

Kim Correll/Missi Pyle: Burning Jewel

Kenneth Tigar: Morley

Jon Cryer: Gitlo

Stephanie Nash: Persia

Terrence Beasor: Woodrow Mason

John Michael Morgan: Father Bourette

Clare Cameron: Beauty

Ben Daniels: Tiger

Khadijah Karriem: Palace

Written and directed by David Beaird. Set by Michael Marlowe. Costumes by Sean Sullivan. Lighting by Kate Delcambre. Stage manager Heather L. Murman.