An urgent journey of discovery

“We are, all of us, works of art.” This grace note encapsulates “Walking the Dead,” opening the Rude Guerrilla Theatre Company’s sixth season in Santa Ana. Keith Curran’s tragicomic 1991 transsexual odyssey receives a vital, haunting revival.

It begins in full light, with cast members spanning director Jeff Marx’s abstract setting to address the house in counterpoint. Their hilarious cacophony deftly neutralizes resistance to the surreal narrative that ensues.

The plot concerns Veronica (Alison Hartson), whose journey of self-discovery emerges in fragmented flashbacks by various intimates. This stylized commentary illuminates its subject indirectly, through what its commentators reveal about themselves and, by default, the audience.

By the shattering denouement, message and metaphor have merged into a memorial performance art installation of indelible pathos and simplicity.

Curran’s aesthetic control and spot-on epigrams connect directly with the solar plexus, underscored by a topical urgency that remains stunning. Marx negotiates the blend of Maria Irene Fornes, Luigi Pirandello and Paul Rudnick throughout to memorable effect.

The ensemble is exemplary. Hartson’s superb protagonist requires only more performances to be definitive. As Veronica’s quietly eloquent lover and blithely bigoted mother (the horns of the dilemma), Vivian Vanderwerd and Karen Chapin are marvelous in their emotional accuracy.

Eric Eisenbrey’s guileless best friend, Patrick Hurley’s latter-day Oscar Wilde, Alexander Rodriguez’s psychiatrist and Tyler Nelson’s videographer make ideal use of every opportunity. So does this forthright production, and discerning audiences of any persuasion will miss it at their peril.

-- David C. Nichols

“Walking the Dead,” Empire Theater, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m.; Thursday, Jan. 30 only, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 2. Mature audiences. $15. (714) 547-4688. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

*

A ‘Parking Lot’ full of intriguing talent

A refreshing authorial voice distinguishes “The Parking Lot Plays” at Theatre/Theater in Hollywood. Cybele May’s omnibus of one-acts examines some hot-button issues with considerable refinement, though the sum of its parts transcends some of the parts.

Although linked by Mark Worthington’s evocative setting, the six plays are self-sustaining, their individual subjects hinted at in the title of each.

This certainly applies to “A Family Affair,” whose estranged couple unveils an Oresteian connection with a sardonic attack worthy of Shirley Jackson. “Digital Revolution,” a dark comic polemic on recent advances in science, tickles while provoking ample thought.

Perhaps the peak achievements are “Tough Love,” an absurdist park bench riff that effortlessly segues into high allegory, and “Demise,” an epic survivor’s monologue recalling Jean Cocteau.

However, the inconclusive mix of satire and sobriety in “A Grave Mistake,” an account of bereaved parents and cemetery mismanagement, could stand expansion. A Kent State elegy, “Four May,” while admirable in its objective, overreaches for significance.

Still, May’s talent is acute, as is the expertise of director Heidi Rose Robbins, the designers and the cast, which alternates at weekend shows.

The reviewed performance featured Nicolette Chaffey, Jeff Murray, Christine Avila, Michelle Allen, Matt Skaja, Chris Johnston and the uncanny Gergana Mellin, all entirely accomplished and intriguing. Which sums up “The Parking Lot Plays,” and industry headhunters should scope out the inhabitants therein.

-- D.C.N.

“The Parking Lot Plays,” Theatre/Theater, 6425 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Feb. 9. $15. (323) 871-9433. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

*

‘Abstract’ paints a muddled canvas

Renowned for her chatty, character-driven plays about female bonding, Theresa Rebeck imposes a more “serious” plot on “Abstract Expression,” her drama about an impecunious artist and the effect his sudden rise to fame has on those in his orbit.

Certainly, Rebeck’s proven knack for dialogue is evident in Dave P. Moore’s eminently watchable staging for the Chautauqua Theatre Alliance at the Egyptian Arena Theatre. But despite the herculean efforts of Moore and his cast to harness the play’s digressive energy, what results is a soap-operatic and reiterative mess.

The artist and galvanizing character of the play, Walter “Mack” Kidman (John SanderFord), an abstract expressionist, has plied his craft in abject poverty ever since a New York Times critic savaged him some 15 years ago. But a chance meeting of Kidman’s caterer-waitress daughter, Jenny (Deborah Puette), with prominent gallery owner Lillian (Justine Reiss) reignites Mack’s career. In short order, Kidman becomes a rising star on the New York art scene. However, when tragedy strikes, his hitherto unseen accumulation of work, now worth millions, becomes the bone of fierce contention among Lillian, Jenny and others, including Kidman’s bitter son, Willie (Harris Mann), whose boozy, brilliant father was the bane of his life.

Jenny, for reasons obscure and ever shifting, simply refuses to sell any of Mack’s canvases -- the slender plot point, magnified and endlessly repeated, that finally breaks the spine of Rebeck’s belabored yarn. Rebeck’s cumbersome take on societal elitism and the suffering poor, particularly as expounded by her stereotypical characters, doesn’t help.

Whatever grand and sweeping canvas Rebeck may have intended in this “Abstract” blurs into a drab muddle, a sad contrast to the keenly realized portraits she typically renders.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Abstract Expression,” Egyptian Arena, 1625 N. Las Palmas, Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Feb. 16. $15. (323) 960-8865. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Staging undoes ‘Songs of Joy’

The end of the Trojan War didn’t mean an end to its horror. Suffering merely assumed different forms as violence begat violence, plaguing vanquished and victor alike.

Playwright Charles L. Mee Jr. and director Matthew Wilder revisit the ancient stories in “Songs of Joy and Destitution” at the Open Fist Theatre in Hollywood. They see things from a decidedly contemporary angle, however. The women of Troy wear Muslim head coverings, and the invading soldiers are American.

It’s a provocative concept, but it’s quickly overwhelmed by other factors.

First, there’s the juxtaposition of stories. “Songs” combines two previous Mee scripts, both based on plays by the Greek writer Euripides: “The Trojan Women,” which takes place in the just-conquered city of Troy, and “Orestes,” which unfolds back home in Greece. Aside from a couple of overlapping characters, the connection between tales is evident only to those who already know the mythology.

The experimental, in-your-face staging is still more disorienting -- and it’s an endurance contest, to boot.

The first story is performed in the theater’s empty shell. The usual seats are missing, leaving theatergoers to choose between upended plastic buckets in the middle of the room or wooden benches along the walls. These are viewers’ perches for the next hour and 45 minutes, as the mourning women of Troy are simultaneously befriended and menaced by soldiers bearing oranges and rifles. Song-and-dance numbers emerge in abrupt juxtapositions.

The second story, “Orestes,” focuses on a brother and sister who murder their adulterous mother and her lover. The text has been divided into five-minute segments that are performed in fun-house-like settings.

Audience members are assigned to groups that begin their visits in different rooms of this fun house. As a result, most groups enter the story somewhere in the middle and cycle their way around.

The sights are at times vivid: A prerecorded soap-opera-like scene plays on a television in a bloody bedroom; a surreal courtroom scene takes place on a basketball court. But the fragmented story is hard to follow -- especially when theatergoers are standing on tiptoe to watch one scene through a closed window, while straining to hear dialogue piped through headsets.

The 35 actors perform with conviction, and Donna Marquet fills the fun house with extensive detail. But anyone fired up by Mee’s “The Berlin Circle” or “Big Love” might want to hold off for the next production of one of his plays.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“Songs of Joy and Destitution,” Open Fist Theatre, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., $15; Sundays, 7 p.m.; pay what you can. Ends Feb. 15. (323) 882-6912. Running time: 3 hours, 15 minutes.

*

A personality split into 14 pieces

Here’s an idea that, depending on your perspective, may seem inspired, redundant or just plain mean. It’s “Call Us Crazy,” in which 14 actresses perform comically overheated readings from the Anne Heche autobiography “Call Me Crazy.”

After a handful of pre-holiday performances at the Knitting Factory, the show has moved to the Hudson Avenue Theatre in Hollywood.

Heche’s 2001 book contains a detailed account of childhood sexual abuse as well as the actress’ now-famous description of her alter ego, Celestia, in the imaginary “fourth dimension.” “I believe that many people may think I went insane,” Heche writes. “I do not believe I am insane; I believe I went through a period of my life that was insane and it lasted thirty-one years.”

Created and directed by Pamela Ribon, the unauthorized show carves the book into themes, which have been shaped into monologues and assigned to actresses of varying character types. Off-kilter song-and-dance interludes are thrown in for good measure. The result is a humorous if less than sensitive evocation of a fragmented personality.

As in the book, much of the story emerges out of a climactic phone call in which Heche confronts her mother about the abuse. With open copies of the book before them, the actresses sink their teeth into the already purple prose. Change-ups in pitch and tempo render a line such as “ ‘Did you hear me?’ I asked calmly” into a cresting wave of hysteria, followed by the sudden return of even-tempered rationality.

Another section, about Heche’s sexual comfort level, veers into the territory of “The Vagina Monologues,” while Heche’s sidewalk conversation with God makes imaginative use of a sock puppet. Happily, one of the things handled with restraint is Heche’s relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, which is wordlessly rendered in a brief, bittersweet Charlie Chaplinesque encounter.

The performances are solid, the laughs plentiful. The rest depends on how you feel about Heche.

-- D.H.M.

“Call Us Crazy: The Anne Heche Monologues,” Hudson Avenue Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 22. Special guests: Megyn Price, Saturday; Alex Borstein, Jan. 24-25. $15. (323) 856-4200. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.