Familiar Fears Haunt ‘Crackwalker’s’ Misfits

What’s most striking about the two misfit couples in Canadian playwright Judith Thompson’s “The Crackwalker” is not how far removed they are from normal standards of socialized conduct. Rather, it’s that they aren’t removed enough.

No matter how excessive and unsettling their behavior, Thompson’s dead-end characters resonate with a haunting familiarity that makes them all the more disturbing. There’s no way to simply dismiss them as aberrations when they’re driven by fears of loneliness, aging and death that cut so close to home.

In a hard-hitting revival for Company of Angels, Caerthan Banks’ staging delivers the full measure of this play’s uncompromising grimness, but also finds elements of sardonic levity that allow us at least momentary respites.

“You’re lookin’ good,” mutters the abusive manipulator Joe (Michael Erger), after returning to Sandy (Lisa Glass), the wife he abandoned without a word months earlier. “I’m doin’ my eyeliner different,” is all she can pathetically manage by way of response. In Thompson’s oblique dialogue, demons lurk just beneath the most commonplace surface.

Yet these two seem practically mainstream compared with their two friends--”dumb and dumber” would be the appropriate labels for the play’s two couples in a less horrific context.

In plain sight are the demons tormenting Alan (Scott Cain), who is married to the retarded Theresa (Liz Jemielita, in a stunning performance) and irresponsibly has fathered a child with her. As the ramblings of the titular derelict (Scot Renfro) who haunts Alan’s nightmares grow ever more ominous, the descent into tragedy is completed with chillingly well-staged conviction.

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* “The Crackwalker,” Angels Theatre, 2106 Hyperion Blvd., Silver Lake. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. This Sunday only, 2 p.m. (pay what you can). Ends May 13. $15. (323) 883-1717. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.