‘All Souls’ Saves the Day in Salamone’s Trilogy

Lost opportunities hover like ghosts in “The All Souls Trilogy,” a cycle of plays about what people turn to--belief, beauty, one another--when life sends them reeling. AIDS and its opportunistic infections of helplessness and despair weigh heavily upon the stories’ gay and lesbian characters, but the other ills that befall them are often of their own making.

The first two plays in Nick Salamone’s trilogy, “All Souls’ Day” and “Riffs & Credos,” were staged in Los Angeles in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Playwrights’ Arena and Frantic Redhead Productions have revived them to run in repertory with the new “Whale Watchers,” at Glaxa Studios in Silver Lake.

“All Souls’ Day” is well worth seeing, but the others are harder to sit through--especially when the sitting is done as part of the full 4 1/2-hour marathon, on the theater’s cushionless wooden seats.

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The problem, at least in part: Kitchen-sink drama keeps giving way to free-floating fantasy, a mood-setting device that in some ways approximates real life, which can seem assuringly tangible one moment, distressingly abstract the next. These tonal shifts can be disconcerting, however, and although they work effectively in “All Souls’ Day,” they get out of hand in “Riffs & Credos” and are only partially reined in again in “Whale Watchers.”

Gaps in storytelling deepen the bewilderment, as does a decision made for logistical reasons in readying the plays: Though all three stories focus on the same characters, each play has been staged by a different director and a separate team of actors. On the plus side, this forces us to reevaluate the characters each time we meet up with them; still, it ties up brain cells that could be better used elsewhere.

The characters are friends from their days in the gay and lesbian alliance at Tufts University (Salamone’s alma mater) in Medford, Mass., in the mid-’70s.

“All Souls’ Day” drops in on them as they reunite in Medford for a Halloween party in 1989. Though launched with playful antics and high spirits, the gathering quickly proves to be haunted by memories of happier times and by the spectral presence of a member of the circle who has been taken by AIDS.

Director Jon Lawrence Rivera builds the action to increasing crescendos of emotion, and the characterizations are achingly real--especially Nic Arnzen’s Sunny, whose flamboyant, fun-loving exterior masks debilitating anguish; Elizabeth Cava’s Jan, a once-invincible woman shattered by the realization that she can’t prevent friends from falling to AIDS; and Clay Storseth’s Martin, as reliable in his ability to make his friends laugh as in his willingness to lend them an ear, a shoulder or a hand. Michael Marlowe’s stylized set is all hard metal surfaces, subtly symbolizing the characters’ hardships.

Salamone himself took on the toughest directing assignment: “Riffs & Credos.” Set in Manhattan in 1994, this play enters the final, AIDS-ravaged dreams of the dying Gene (Dean Howell). Though it’s an intriguing theatrical exercise, it grows frustrating as Gene, a priest who is experiencing a last-minute crisis of faith, free-associates among sexual fantasies, profanation of religious ritual and snippets of Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra.”

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Taking place in the present, “Whale Watchers” catches up with the friends (though not Martin, which goes unexplained) as they make an outing on a whale-watching boat off the Massachusetts coast--setting up a story about keeping watch so that life doesn’t pass you by. Jan (Jeanne Sakata) and Ell (Elizabeth Huffman) are struggling to hold their 25-year relationship together, and Sunny (Jim Brandt) is trying to reach out to Gene’s tormented widower, Val (Kevin McCarty). Director Jessica Kubzansky coaxes the action toward a touching finale, but the appearance of more ghosts, as well as a number of jump-cuts in time, make the going a bit rough.

* “The All Souls Trilogy,” Glaxa Studios, 3707 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake. “All Souls’ Day,” Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 5 p.m. “Riffs & Credos,” Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 7:30 p.m. “Whale Watchers,” Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 9 p.m. Ends May 21. $15 apiece, $25 for all three. Dinner package at next-door Cirxa soul and Creole restaurant, $30 with Play 1 or Plays 2-3, or $40 with all three. (323) 960-7756. Running time: “All Souls’ Day,” 1 hour, 50 minutes; “Riffs & Credos,” 1 hour, 15 minutes; “Whale Watchers,” 1 hour, 15 minutes.

In the plays, respectively:

Nic Arnzen, Chris Lavely, Jim Brandt: Sunny

Ahmad Enani, Dean Howell, Kent Davis: Gene

Steve Callahan, Mark Erson, Kevin McCarty: Val

Elizabeth Cava (alt. Deana Payne),

Marjory Graue, Jeanne Sakata: Jan

Carolyn Almos, Elizabeth Huffman: Ell

Clay Storseth: Martin

David Tuchman (alt. Brian Weir): Arthur

Richard Salcido: Nathan

Playwrights’ Arena and Frantic Redhead Productions in association with Glaxa Studios. Written by Nick Salamone. “All Souls’ Day” directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera, “Riffs & Credos” by Salamone, “Whale Watchers” by Jessica Kubzansky. Set: Michael Marlowe. Costumes: Georgia Richardson. Lights: Robert “Bobby” Fromer. Sound: Bob Blackburn. Production stage manager: Ray Simmons.