‘Carrots for Hare’ Tries to Mix Camp and Seriousness

One thing about “Carrots for Hare” at the Powerhouse: It’s certainly never dull. Infact, Cody Henderson’s verse drama about Edinburgh’s 19th century serial slayers Burke and Hare, Irish itinerants who started as grave robbers before turning to murder, is eventful to a fault. It’s the kind of sprawling, gothic, no-holds-barred enterprise that leaves actors foaming at the mouth, and the audience wondering what happened.

The environs of the Powerhouse have been reconfigured, inside and out, for this production. The theater’s courtyard serves as a period “Exhibition and Promenade” where various costumed actors hawk their wares. After an (attenuated) pre-show, guides lead you through a labyrinth of scaffolding and black draperies, where you view period “artifacts” before taking your seat.

Up to this point, the proceedings are purposely anachronistic and tongue-in-cheek. Then the play begins--and confusion mounts over just what tone the progenitors actually intend. Although an undercurrent of camp informs director Rodger Henderson’s scenery-chomping staging, it seems that the playwright is trying to make some serious points about women’s rights and the plight of have-nots in a corrupt social system. But those points are stilted and unnecessary in all the low-tech Grand Guignol excess, in which characters are murdered on stage and plenty of raw meat is flung about indiscriminately.

The bottom line? Burke (Oen Hugo Armstrong) has an obsessive homosexual crush on Hare (Peter Konerko) that prompts him to bloodshed, while their female confederate, Helen (Stacy Cunningham), renders her virginity to university lecturer and anatomist Knox (Albert Dayan) because she thirsts for knowledge--hence her increasing mania for human dissection.

To their credit, the actors, including James Brandon and Ronald E. Wingate Jr., attack their baffling material with no-holds-barred aplomb, leaping on and off the rickety scaffolding of Paul A. Stec’s frighteningly flimsy set. When we’re not fretting about their physical safety--a real and continual distraction--then we are moved to admiration for their zeal, not to mention their sheer physical energy. Now, if only the playwright could focus this macabre romp into something remotely comprehensible.

* “Carrots for Hare,” Powerhouse Theatre, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Dark Thanksgiving. Ends Dec. 3. $12. (310) 281-8341. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Beneath the Surface of ‘Friendly Acquaintances’ How would you react if you learned that two of your best friends were fugitives from a murder rap? Jack Betts’ “Friendly Acquaintances” at the Met concerns the effect of such a revelation on an established social circle. However, Betts, who directs--and who also designed the remarkably detailed set--never makes his intrinsically fascinating premise pay off.

The action opens in a flood and ends in fire--a biblical overlay to an otherwise unremarkable plot. Betty and Mike Pauley (Ashley F. Brook and Robert Pine) have just saved their friend Margaret Hollister (Leigh Rose) from drowning, for which Margaret’s husband, Fred (Don Moss), is grateful. The couples are the best of friends--until a shocking secret in the Pauleys’ past comes to light. Events escalate, predictably, to a fiery finale.

Betts has the opportunity to explore the nature of true character as opposed to social veneer, the agonizing exposure of hidden ugliness in one’s loved ones. However, in this case, the creeps are creepy from the get-go, while the saintly types--including the accused murderers themselves--are unremittingly righteous.

True, a couple of the characters are morally ambivalent, which is more interesting, but in any event, Betts fails to capture the charged progression from innocence to experience. As a result, the defining moment of the Pauleys’ exposure trickles away in cliches and stereotypes. We are subjected to the confused scheming of the Hollisters’ round-heeled vixen daughter, Crystal (Kaycee Shank), while, conversely, we must endure the pained introspection of David (Michael Moon, who alternates in the role with Jack Kyle), the Hollisters’ angelic son and the observer-narrator of the piece.

Then there are characters--such as the flamboyant Flora (Christopher Callen)--who do nothing whatsoever to advance the narrative. When David muses, in a closing speech, “Nothing is forever, is it?”--we beg to differ.

* “Friendly Acquaintances,” Met Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford St., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Nov. 19. $20. (323) 960-5600. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.