Death-Penalty Drama ‘Coyote’ Roams Familiar Territory

For its new production of Bruce Graham’s “Coyote on a Fence,” Burbank’s Alliance Theatre adopts an unusual configuration. The flexible performance space seats the audience on two narrow ledges--each just one row--stripped down the walls of the theater above an oblong pit. As a result, the action occurs below your feet. Watching a play here is like lifting the top off a cage of laboratory mice to see them trapped and scurrying below.

This stark, no-exit set design is perfect for the West Coast premiere of “Coyote,” an exploration of the ethical ramifications of capital punishment--set in prison, on death row.

Yes, it’s an “issue” play (Graham’s “Minor Demons,” about a defense attorney torn over using a legal technicality to save an accused rapist-murderer, made its L.A. premiere with Alliance Repertory Company in 1994 ). It’s also an issue play that doesn’t really cover much fresh moral or ethical turf. Still, Graham has created characters of enough emotional complexity--and a story with enough disturbing surprises--that this struggle with well-worn questions remains compelling to watch.

John Brennan (James Morrison) is a self-righteous, chess-playing intellectual and also the editor of the Death Row Advocate, a house newspaper given to running sanitized obituaries for the executed. His new cellmate is Bobby Reyburn (Joe Mellis), a young white supremacist of subnormal intelligence, convicted of murdering 37 black congregants in an arson at a church. Outside observers of the development of their uneasy partnership are jaded prison guard Shawna DuChamps (Livia Trevino) and Sam Fried (Jesse Levy), a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter polishing his resume with a story on Brennan’s prison newspaper.

Joe Mellis glows as Bobby, whose affectionate, childlike sweetness stands as heartbreaking contradiction to the racist cant that spews from his mouth. The other actors are effective in their brooding thoughtfulness but might do well to borrow a little of Mellis’ electric energy. Emotions run high--but could go higher.

Diane Haithman

“Coyote on a Fence,” Alliance Theatre, 3204 W. Magnolia Blvd.,

Burbank. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends March 17. $15. (323) 655-8587.

*

Teen Tales of Woe in ‘Human Club’

There’s a sensitive coming-of-age story to be told in “The Less Than Human Club,” but it can’t emerge until its attractive young actors begin to treat this as a play instead of an audition for Hollywood’s next teen-angst drama. It’s every actor for himself as otherwise fine performances get embellished for the seeming benefit of whatever casting directors might be checking out this V&B; production at McCadden Place Theatre.

Emotionally true if rambling, Timothy Mason’s memory play looks back at 1967 and a group of high school juniors who don’t fit into the mainstream and have adopted the tongue-in-cheek name that gives the play its title. Like most teens, though, they treat every spat, every hopeless crush as a matter of life or death, yet are only intermittently aware of actual life and death in the larger world around them.

As the story’s narrator, Ian Bohen finds that fusion of excitement and panic that comes with sexual awareness. In one of the truest scenes, he sets out to prove something to himself--but confirms something different--during a misfired kiss with the awkward but uncommonly insightful girl (Amy Smart) he has invited to a dance.

Anna Faris (of the “Scary Movie” comedies) brings an offhand playfulness to the pretty, bookish girl who is smitten with Bohen’s character, and at a loss as to why he politely ignores her.

Greg Cipes, Veronique Vicari, Branden Williams, Maritza Murray and the single-named Catero all tap something essential, but director Taylor Sheridan has been too indulgent with them, and too languid with the pacing.

Daryl H. Miller

“The Less Than Human Club,” McCadden Place Theatre, 1157 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 3. $20. (877) 835-4709. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

A Compelling Look at Psychological Scars

Terrylene doesn’t speak, but she has a lot to say about the sobering subject of childhood sexual abuse in her autobiographical solo performance, “In the Now,” at the Santa Monica Playhouse.

After depicting other characters’ hardships in Deaf West’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” and the Fountain Theatre’s “Sweet Nothing in My Ear,” the deaf actress focuses on her own struggle to overcome the psychological scars left by a sociopathic stepfather.

Not to take anything away from the importance of her message, but the arc of Terrylene’s story is an all-too-familiar one: repeated molestation within the false sanctuary of the home, intimidation and fear-induced silence and self-imposed denial on the part of others who might have helped.

What makes Terrylene’s saga so uniquely compelling is the manner of its telling--or rather, signing. Her eloquent performance is a testament to the expressive, poetic power of sign language, in which feelings float much closer to the surface than guarded words usually permit. Terrylene’s emotional life and the people who shaped it play themselves out with no translation required in her hands and on her face. But just in case you don’t know sign language, director Mark W. Travis deals with that by using a voice interpreter (Maureen Davis or Elizabeth Greene) to fill in the factual details.

Another evocative staging element is the original score performed by composer Marilyn Donadt on hand-built percussive instruments (somewhat reminiscent of composer-instrument inventor Harry Partch). Without distracting from the narrative, Donadt subtly punctuates the shifting moods and underscores the jagged edges in the most harrowing sequences.

Acknowledging society’s general reluctance to openly confront this troubling subject, Terrylene admits she further acquiesced to the resistance within her insular, fiercely self-supporting deaf community, which could not tolerate hard truths about one of its own. Her long silence took its toll on her self-respect, however. Telling her story is a courageous confession that completes her transition from victim to survivor.

Philip Brandes

“In the Now,” Santa Monica Playhouse, 1211 4th St., Santa Monica. Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 3:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3:30 p.m. Ends Feb. 17. $23. (310) 394-9779. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

*

Their Turn to Make It Big in New York

Why do they do it?

This is the most--indeed, the only--compelling question in “Roommate Wanted” at the Century City Playhouse, a mini-musical comedy produced, acted and written by Meredith Lavender and Jessica Sullivan, about the tribulations of two young actresses trying to make it in New York.

Thrown together by the shortage of affordable housing in Manhattan, Megan Miller (Lavender) and Jules Harris (Sullivan) are as different as Des Moines and SoHo, where they share an apartment.

Jules is a brassy, savvy blond, recently jilted by her boyfriend, who tends bar and flashes her mile-wide smile in toothpaste commercials to pay the rent.

Megan was smitten by the stage when she saw “Cats” at the age of 7 and is fresh from Iowa, with a suitcase full of old costumes worn in amateur theatricals (“Back home I was such a hotshot,” she says). Alone in the apartment, she puts on something from “Peter Pan” or “Fiddler on the Roof” whenever she feels homesick.

Along the way to friendship and starring roles, bad things happen: Megan’s purse is snatched, and Jules runs into her ex with his new girlfriend. Megan’s mom wants her to come home; Jules buys an expensive black sweater she can’t afford. Still, such trials yield a partial answer to the evening’s overriding question. Why do they put up with squalor, rejection and the big bleak indifferent city to work in the theater? “It’s in our hearts,” Jules says.

Bad things happen to the audience too, chiefly such leaden punch lines as “It’s just like a ‘Friends’ episode” (Megan) and “I am living with a Hallmark card” (Jules). Although Sullivan’s broad, clean acting style is well suited to musical comedy and Lavender has a pretty voice, they talk at, not to, each other. There’s a kung fu dance routine that’s ungainly and too big for the stage; Jules describes her misadventure on Fifth Avenue by dancing a bumptious tango with a shopping bag. And as things wind down, both sing numbers from the musicals they’ve finally been cast in, “Cats” and “Rent.”

Mounting a showcase production of this kind takes guts, not to mention money in a town where a small theater like the Century City Playhouse rents for thousands of dollars a week. Why did Lavender and Sullivan do it? Doubtless, it’s in their hearts. More important, the goal is to show their stuff to the agents and casting directors they can persuade to attend.

One suspects they have stuff to show. Sullivan could play most Barbra Streisand and Bernadette Peters roles; Lavender would make a winsome Laurie in “Oklahoma.” But they don’t look good in “Roommate Wanted,” the sort of musical comedy dreamed up by a homesick girl from Iowa in an old “Peter Pan” costume.

Susan Spano

“Roommate Wanted,” Century City Playhouse, 10508 W. Pico Blvd., L.A. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 2. $10. (310) 204-4440. Running time: 1 hour.