DeYoung captures Beckett’s obsession

Passion and initiative pay off big time as “Cliff DeYoung in the Works of Samuel Beckett” marks the film and television actor’s return to his Cal State L.A. alma mater, inaugurating the newly renovated 99-seat Arena Theatre on an auspicious note.

DeYoung’s longtime passion for Beckett plays impelled him to seek permission from Beckett’s estate to resurrect this long-forgotten anthology, compiled in 1962 by Beckett and his legendary interpreter, Jack MacGowran.

In a compact but impressively complete tour of the Irish author’s signature existential themes and obsessions, DeYoung, in the persona of Beckett’s archetypal dirt-encrusted vagabond, seamlessly weaves sequences from the more familiar plays (“Waiting for Godot,” “Krapp’s Last Tape,” “Endgame”) with passages from lesser known works, such as the trio of longer novels (“Malone Dies,” “Malloy” and “The Unnamable”) and several short poems and stories.

“I have never been on my way anywhere -- simply on my way,” the nameless wanderer (quoting “From an Abandoned Work”) sums up Beckett’s overarching vision of life without meaning. Solitary attempts to wrest whatever fleeting moments of significance and contentment we can along the way are chronicled in a thematically associated stream of consciousness.

Beckett’s favorite satirical targets are also well represented. Cheap sentimentality gets skewered in a detailed account of the petty annoyances that demolished a first love, and the recollection of a mother waving goodbye is continuously distracted by flat details -- the color of the window pane, the lighting -- everything but emotion. In another high point, DeYoung delivers Lucky’s tongue-twisting parody of pedantic scholarship from “Godot” in its entirety.

Under Dennis Redfield’s minimalist staging, DeYoung adroitly mines irony, despair and absurdity. A sequence (from “Malloy”) detailing a meticulous procedure for continually redistributing six stones among four pockets goes Sisyphus one better -- the pointless repetition is not only a punitive sentence but also enthusiastically embraced.

If there’s a complaint to be leveled, it would be the lack of out-and-out clowning. Beckett plays are frequently cast with comedians (there are Chaplinesque elements to his tramps). DeYoung’s comedy is more stoic, but he is very much in tune with this challenging, rarely performed material.

-- Philip Brandes

“Cliff DeYoung in the Works of Samuel Beckett,” Cal State L.A. Arena Theatre, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 16. $15. (323) 343-4118. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

*

Study in contrast: ‘Punk’ and ‘People’

Two one-acts at the Stage 52 Playhouse span the spectrum from the tensely compressed to the good-naturedly profuse. The evening’s opener, “Happy Anniversary, Punk!” is the shorter and more controlled offering. Written and directed by Michael Ajakwe Jr., this greyhound-paced drama concerns a bereaved father, Al (Bill Lee Brown), who “celebrates” the first anniversary of his 14-year-old son’s murder by confronting his teenage killer, Big Mac (Willie Latimore).

Outraged because the legal system has released Big Mac on probation, Al breaks into Big Mac’s house to administer his own vigilante justice at the point of a pistol. However, Al’s efforts to understand why his son had to die lead him into a discourse with the rebellious teen -- a conversation fraught with tension, rage and unexpected humanity.

Ajakwe interjects a bounty of earthy humor into his somewhat simplistic story, and Brown and Latimore play their polar opposite roles with raw power and authority. Brown’s hard-working family man, pushed to the limit by his loss, is effectively balanced by Latimore’s unfeeling suburban kid, a youth on a violent shortcut to manhood who is finally forced to contemplate the consequences of his actions.

Longer and much more diffuse, Kosmond Russell’s “The Cubicle People” shows the behind-the-scenes feuding and fondling at a big city advertising agency. Occasionally very funny indeed, the play features a winning cast, spearheaded by the marvelous Aloma Wright (“Scrubs”) as Quita, the agency receptionist, a big and feisty woman who never hesitates to throw open a closet and rattle the company skeletons.

Also outstanding is Bonita Brisker as Pashion, the agency femme fatale, who is unabashedly sleeping her way to the top when her upward mobility collides with true love. Russell gets unfortunately preachy in the play’s later scenes, losing comedic momentum in sentimentality and sermonizing. Also problematic is the slipshod direction by Denise Dowse, whose frequent blackouts for frantic furniture shifting seem unnecessary and amateurish.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Happy Anniversary, Punk!” and “The Cubicle People,” Stage 52, 5299 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 23. $20. (323) 655-8587. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.

*

Goodwill, but a loose ‘Connection’

Sometimes, a play is such a mess it seems purposeless to try to quantify its shortcomings.

A case in point is Roy Avigdori’s “The Palestinian Connection” at Theatre 6470. Written by, directed by and featuring Avigdori, a native Israeli who grew up in the Middle East, the play “supports peace and nothing else” -- or so the writer’s notes in the program would have it. Those writer’s notes are about the only clue we have in this generally clueless production, which vacillates wildly between farce and polemic.

The action opens in a Tel Aviv apartment, where Vazir (Navid Negahban), a Palestinian, sits tied and gagged in a chair. (Negahban, a native-born Iranian, is the best actor in an otherwise ragtag bunch.) When Betty (vacuous Martina Geller), returning from a European junket, happens onto a beaten, bound man in the apartment she shares with Joseph (Sam Feuer), she seems more befuddled than genuinely alarmed.

As soon as Betty frolics off to take a bath -- what else would you do if you found a suspected terrorist in your apartment? -- Vazir manages to get out of the chair, crawl to the phone and place a muffled call, gag still in place. That prompts Betty to pistol-whip him in short order -- a real stretch, considering she’s a fluffy, dumb blond who has no idea who this guy is.

That kind of tone-deaf and unmotivated interaction prevails for the rest of the play. We soon learn that Joseph and his fanatical ally Cohen (Avigdori) have caught Vazir with a suitcase full of explosives and have taken him to this apartment to interrogate him. (Why Cohen, an Israeli cop, didn’t take his suspect directly to headquarters is anyone’s guess.) Vazir’s brother Ahmed (Herzl Tobey), a Palestinian terrorist whose fanaticism rivals Cohen’s, vows vengeance against the men who captured Vazir. While all this equal opportunity fanaticism is raging around them, Joseph and Vazir discover that they have a lot in common after all.

But of course. And just as predictably, nice guys finish last in Avigdori’s confused play, which strives hard to make some warm, fuzzy statement about the purposelessness of war. However, there’s a wide divide between intention and execution, as proven by this pointless exercise in goodwill and bad art.

-- F.K.F.

“The Palestinian Connection,” 6470 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 4 p.m. Ends Dec. 21. $20. (323) 856-4200. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.