Theater Review : ‘Greeks’ Shows Its Achilles’ Heel : Wildly uneven two-part play soars stunningly and falls dramatically. It redeems itself by taking risks.

Any theater, any time, I’ll take the insanely uneven over the OK. OK shows tend to whittle away at a theatergoer’s passion far more insidiously than outlandish indulgences, risky belly-flops, the berserkly inconsistent. Before long, the whittling has made its evil mark, and the buzz surrounding a given theater’s latest work has become no more compelling than “Yeah, it was OK.”

“OK” isn’t what leaps to mind regarding the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble’s mounting of “The Greeks.” Director Ron Sossi’s two-part six-hour production opened over the weekend, audibly out of breath.

It’s an insanely uneven enterprise, graced on the high end by some lovely, affecting acting as well as some shrewdly considered moments of simple, hard-hitting stagecraft. The shows--Part 1, “The Cursed,” followed by Part 2, “The Blessed”--also make room for boatloads of misjudged hysteria, featuring performances that go for broke every second. And two three-hour slabs equal a lot of seconds.

Kenneth Cavander’s adaptation was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980. It folds together various plays and myths, chronologically straightening out tales by Euripides, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Homer’s “The Iliad.”

His focus is the Trojan War and the Greek general Agamemnon (Marc Alaimo); his wife, Clytemnestra (Jeanie Hackett); and their unruly, unlucky and far-flung kids Iphigenia (Paris Jefferson), Electra (Paula Malcomson) and Orestes (Garon Michael). That’s a start, anyway. Cavander’s two-parter unfolds like a nimble, if squirrelly, six-hour Greek tragedy highlights reel.

For much of it we’re treated to one revenge killing and counter-murder after another. Scenic designer Mikiko Uesugi’s clever, spare set pieces rely on twisted metal rods and, at one whimsical point, tiny little pyramids, for a side trip to Egypt. They arrive in the middle of the second part, in the playlet “Helen,” about Helen of Troy (Laurie O’Brien, amusing in a 1950s TV variety hour-style), well matched by her long-lost hubby, Menelaus (played by Al Rossi, as if on loan from “The Boys From Syracuse”). Here Cavander’s text shifts gears, from first to fifth. After so much wailing, it’s a welcome change.

Cavander tends to boil everything down to narrative incident. The language is blunt, often slangy (“Complain to someone who gives a damn,” one character says to another). If it reduces the stature of the individual sources, well, it’s still a pretty good miniseries.

Director Sossi’s program notes set some sort of record for this-show-almost-killed-us frankness. In them he cites “staff burnout” and the “substantial financial liability” of such an undertaking, even with the help of various supporters’ “substantial personal loans.” Along the way “The Greeks” got creamed in terms of losing cast members to film and TV projects.

All of which has instilled in Sossi’s production an additional air of . . . urgency? Insanity? The need for another week of rehearsal? Yes, yes and yes. Yet for all its rough edges and risible, vein-bulging low points, chief among them Part 1’s climactic branding scene, “The Greeks”--particularly the weirdly comic second half--at least feels like a project worth the struggle.

Sossi’s ensemble standouts include Jeanie Hackett’s human-scaled Clytemnestra; Paris Jefferson’s, plaintive, touching Iphigenia; Jack Axelrod’s servant, a prototypic seen-everything salt of the Earth; and most affectingly, Beth Hogan’s Andromache. She’s unassuming, unfussy and arrow-straight in her emotional effects. Also, you couldn’t ask for a better sea nymph than Daphne Nayar. Her strong, direct gaze and memorably insinuating alto delivery make for a terrific lead Greek chorine, too.

From there, well . . . some amiable and competent work and too much only aspiring to that level. Confronted with the sternest stuff in world drama, the weaker links can only attempt to somehow, some way, Shout It Out.

At the end you’re left with a crazily mixed bag. But as with any Greek tragedy, straight or freely adapted, it’s always instructive to reacquaint yourself with people--human, flawed, morally conflicted people--whose problems may, in fact, outweigh your own.

* “The Greeks,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Call for performance schedule. Ends Dec. 5. Part 1 or 2, $20.50-$24.50; package of both parts, $38-$46. (714) 708-5555. Running time, Part 1: 3 hours, 5 minutes. Running time, Part 2: 3 hours, 5 minutes.

Marc Alaimo: Agamemnon

Jack Axelrod: Old man

Al Rossi: Menelaus

John Wills Martin: Talthybius

Paris Jefferson: Iphigenia

Jeanie Hackett: Clytemnestra

Dathan Hooper: Achilles

Pablo Cartaya: Patroclus

Daphne Nayar: Thetis

Frances Bay: Hecuba

Ginta Rae: Cassandra

Beth Hogan: Andromache

Laurie O’Brien: Helen

Paula Malcomson: Electra

Varvara Kalinin: Chrysothemis

Garon Michael: Orestes

Translated and adapted by Kenneth Cavander, based on the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Homer. Directed by Ron Sossi. Set by Mikiko Uesugi. Costumes by Denise Blasor and Timothy Mark Neuman. Lighting by Kathi O’Donahue. Sound by Tom McCleister. Movement by Will Salmon. Choreography by Perviz Shetty. Associate director Jeanie Hackett.