‘J for J’ Bound by Family, History

When spotlights attempt to hypnotize the cosmos, the point is to draw attention to the vortex of the rotating beams.

Two Saturdays back, the spotlights were entirely called for, as they announced the world premiere of “J for J,” Jenny Sullivan’s moving and provocative new play, put on by the Rubicon Theatre Company at the Laurel Theatre.

Work doesn’t come much more autobiographical than this, and yet its ultimate success has to do with the play’s grasp of universal themes, while maintaining an intriguingly elastic thread between history and family. The play is based on the playwright-director-actress’ discovery of an old journal kept by her actor father, Barry Sullivan. The journal was discovered after his death in 1994.

The end result is a creative, multidimensional theater piece in which Jenny--appearing as herself, she is the more talkative, overly analytical character--ponders her relationship with her late father (played by Jeff Kober, who mostly just recites actual passages from Barry’s journal). Chronology leaps back and forth, from the ‘40s through the ‘90s, creating a subtext of historical metamorphosis.

Yet the central figure is John Sullivan, a developmentally disabled brother who now lives in a home in Chatsworth. John Ritter’s portrayal of John, obsessive about such things as car makes, Starbucks and his sister Jenny, steals the show in ways that have little to do with verbalization. Ritter brings a compassionate, focused intensity to his role, giving this introspective theater piece an all-important measure of flesh-and-blood empathy. * “J for J,” Rubicon Theatre Company, Laurel Theatre, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura. Evenings, Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; matinees, Wed., Sat. and Sun., 2 p.m. Ends Nov. 4. $23-28. (805) 667-2900.

Gallery Report: It’s a cultural truth that art spaces come and go. Even so, it comes as disappointing news that the fine, dress-down Art City Gallery’s days are numbered. The gallery has been around long enough, and hosted enough memorable shows in the last several years, to affirm its importance in Ventura’s art scene.

After February’s annual Erotic Art show, this rustic and splendid location on the city’s fringe will transform into a stone showroom. There is talk of finding a new space, and the corner lot at Main and Peking Streets is being transformed into a sculpture garden by Art City founder Paul Lindhard, but an era seems to be ending.

For the moment, though, the gallery is in full swing, with a show called “A Harvest of the Soul.” The show ostensibly is timed with the Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration, but that only accounts for a few relevant pieces here. In particular, the theme is forwarded in two corners of the gallery, given over to altars and installations.

Cheeky skulls made of Styrofoam and other Day of the Dead touches grace Maribel Hernandez’s “Ofrenda (Altar Offering) to Benito Juarez,” but it’s mainly a tribute to Juarez, the 19th century Mexican statesman whose portrait is placed centrally. Off to the side is Hernandez’s “La Calavera” depicting a skull aswim in orange lights.

In another of the gallery’s corners, Taras Telek has erected an installation art piece in a crude, self-enclosed booth, with the whimsical title “The Dead Look Upon the Art of the Living Depicting the Dead.” Inside, life-size skeletons bathe in black light, gazing at relief pieces. We, the living, look at the skeletons looking at art, completing the ironic loop of the title.

Another kind of nightmarish reference, perhaps too close for comfort at the moment, is a large, 5-foot-by-7-foot painting called “The Soldier,” by sTeVe Knauff and M.B. Hanrahan. On a canvas stretched over PVC pipes that accentuate the work’s propaganda-like atmosphere, a soldier with a deathly yellow “happy face” is seen impaled on a bayonet, with a pacifistic text reading “wars will cease when people refuse to fight.”

In the gallery’s center sits Matt Harvey’s super-sleek, imposing “Top Hat Panther,” a larger-than-life-size big cat made from gleaming Belgian black marble. * “A Harvest of the Soul,” Art City, 34 Peking St., Ventura. Ends Dec. 2. Gallery hours: Wed.-Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (805) 648-1690.

Chorale Going North: Next up on the calendar for Los Robles Master Chorale is a northbound road trip. This weekend, they’ll provide choral muster for a Santa Barbara Symphony performance of Mahler’s mighty Second Symphony, “Resurrection.” At the podium will be none other than Gilbert Kaplan, a former magazine publisher who has made a career doing only this piece * Santa Barbara Symphony, Arlington Theater, 1317 State St., Santa Barbara, 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. $18-42. (805) 963-4408.