With a song in his heart: the Lara saga

Throbbing with romance, the music of popular Mexican composer Agustin Lara is as vital and insistent as a beating heart.

When encountering work of such deep emotion, the public is naturally curious about how much of it resulted from the creator’s life experiences. Such conjecture lies at the heart of “Solamente una vez / You Belong to My Heart,” a revue of Lara’s music that borrows the original Spanish title and English-language renaming of one of his most famous songs. Gorgeously staged and thrillingly sung, this Bilingual Foundation of the Arts presentation is playing to packed, enthusiastic houses.

Variously known as Mexico’s Irving Berlin (for his extraordinary output, some 600 songs) or Cole Porter (for his lush wordplay), Lara fused Mexican folk genres with other Western styles. The best-known include “Granada,” “Aquel Amor,” “Mujer” and “Maria Bonita” (the last written about his tempestuous marriage to film star Maria Felix).

Though it picks up on themes from Lara’s life (1897-1970), the show by Margarita Galban and Lina Montalvo states upfront that it is fictional. The action unfolds in a bordello (rendered in rich red and pure white by designer Estela Scarlata), where Lara was known to perform in his early years. Here, the much-married songwriter-singer is surrounded by the women who inspired songs that sometimes soared with rapture, sometimes plunged into melancholy.

Thin, sad-eyed and charismatic, Lara has been described as a cross between Valentino and Humphrey Bogart -- qualities well-embodied in Cesar Oliva-Bernal.

Sung to prerecorded accompaniment, the music pulses with life on the several occasions that it is delivered by the dusky-voiced Rosella Arvizu. Also exciting are the long-held notes and explosive pitches of soprano Gabriela Crowe and the smooth, bittersweet interpretations of Angela Estrada.

Even at the alternating English-language performances, the numbers are sung in their original Spanish. But these songs transcend words, and in Galban’s artful staging -- which facilitates an incredible parade of vintage fashions by Carlos Brown -- there is always something to delight the eye.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“Solamente una vez / You Belong to My Heart,” Bilingual Foundation of the Arts, 421 N. Ave. 19, Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. In Spanish this weekend and Nov. 6-9 and 13-16; in English Oct. 30-Nov. 2. Ends Nov. 16. Closing weekend, added 4 p.m. Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday performances. $25-$27. (323) 225-4044. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

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Neophyte authors have their day

Youth may be overrated in the arts, where received tradition and institutional memory are too often shortchanged in the quest for the Next Big (twentysomething) Thing. But at best we look to young artists for a fresh take, a new twist on old forms, an original voice.

The Blank Theatre Company’s Young Playwrights Festival, which sifts through hundreds of nationwide submissions from under-20-year-old scribes, has a good track record of finding and showcasing such original voices with impeccable professional productions, from Joseph Alan Drymala’s uncannily mature musical “Sky’s End” (1996) to Victor Kaufold’s anguished teen-violence meditation “The Why” (2000).

The cream of this year’s crop isn’t in that class. Slight to a fault, the two one-acts under the title “funny ...” demonstrate forgivable but less appealing traits of youth: confused ambition and slavish imitation.

In Jason Connors’ “Someone’s Living in the House That Jack Built,” a lonely guy who talks to mannequins (Gregory Jbara) befriends a diffident alternative-Bible salesman (Tom Lenk). Richard Kline’s subdued direction gives full weight to some of Connors’ bathetic monologues at the expense of zany momentum.

Ginger Healy’s “Mousy Brown” traces a predictable teen rite of passage with admirable if unremarkable wit and economy, and it’s made effortlessly engaging thanks to a playfully sincere lead performance by adorable, raspy-voiced tomboy Constance Zimmer. Also helping it pass pleasantly is the spirited direction of Austin Winsberg -- himself an alumnus of the Blank’s Young Playwrights Fest, now a successful sitcom writer. On the evidence of these two new plays, he needn’t fear the competition.

-- Rob Kendt

“funny ...,” Blank Theatre Company at the 2nd Stage, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Nov. 2. $25. (323) 661-9827. 1 hour, 35 minutes.

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Just call it a Kinsey retort

In the late 1930s, Alfred Charles Kinsey, a zoologist who had voluminously cataloged the gall wasp, turned his exacting research methods to another under-explored subject: human sexuality. His resulting volumes on male and female sexual behavior -- published, respectively, in 1948 and 1953 -- were highly praised and widely read. But they also were condemned as a threat to morality.

Kinsey had shaken a wasps’ nest.

Kinsey and his studies are jumping-off points for “ ... Wasps,” the full title of which, for propriety’s sake, can’t be printed here. Writer-director Steve Morgan Haskell weaves biographical facts into the narrative, but veracity isn’t the objective. Developed at Theatre of NOTE, this hard-to-define piece is, essentially, a series of nightmarish free associations in which Kinsey’s life and work unfold in an America patrolled by sex police.

Crumbling walls are covered with political art (by Matt Sesow) that depicts sex as a closely regulated activity, and the dozen performers are outfitted in dark-blue uniforms (by Kathryn Stockwood).

In episodes stretching from youth to his death at age 62 in 1956, Kinsey (Terry Tocantins) is presented as a man who lives in his head but is eager to get his body involved as well. Though socially awkward, he is catnip to women and men alike, and his sexual activity (depicted with a fair amount of nudity and simulation) ranges across his own Kinsey scale.

The brave cast includes Jennifer Ann Evans as Kinsey’s wife; Greg Wall as a looming, occasionally brutish authority figure; and Kirsten Vangsness as a conduit of conflicting attitudes about Kinsey’s work.

Though in many ways imaginative and ambitious, “... Wasps” can be thuddingly obvious one moment and frustratingly incomprehensible the next. Even those who admire it may end up feeling they’ve been stung.

-- D.H.M.

” ... Wasps,” Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 15. $15. (323) 856-8611. Running time: 2 hours.

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Troubled teens take a hike

The title hike in “The Road to RMI” leads to the Rocky Mountain Institute, a boot camp for troubled teens. This locale serves as metaphor and pivot for Jay Parker and James Golden’s cautionary drama, now at Two Roads Theatre in Studio City.

The principal characters are an embattled father and son, who carry the codependent premise. Michael Daniels (Jeffrey Markle) is a prominent Los Angeles cancer specialist who blinds himself to the corollaries between pot-smoking scion Timothy (Alan Fuller) and Michael’s jovial alcoholism. After Michael’s ex-wife sends Timothy to live with Dad and stepmother Aracely (Adriana Millan), the accelerating rebellion becomes untenable. Michael packs his hell-raising offspring off to Colorado on a tip from best friend Richard (Skip Pipo), whose illness Michael fails to detect.

Under the watch of RMI counselor Erock (Rico E. Anderson), Timothy tastes self-esteem for the first time. Mail restrictions keep him unaware that he left his ex-girlfriend (Jennifer Lutheran) expecting, or that Aracely has left Michael, who faces professional ruin from Richard’s litigious widow (Mikaela Rachal).

Real-life physician Golden’s fact-based narrative is rampant with good intentions. As constructed with co-author Parker, “RMI” occupies a surreal epistolary whorl that combines Michael Cristofer’s “The Shadow Box” with every inspirational Reader’s Digest profile ever published.

Parker’s direction is resourceful, and the tech is respectable. So are the actors, with Markle and Fuller giving their clashes everything they have, as do their accomplished colleagues.

Yet the script strains for dramatic impetus, with excessive exposition and too many sidebar plot threads. An affecting property dwells beneath the overgrowth along “The Road to RMI,” but its excavation requires the tough love of revision.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Road to RMI,” Two Roads Theatre, 4345 Tujunga Ave., Studio City. Fridays - Saturdays, 8 p.m. Indefinitely. Mature audiences. $20. (626) 403-1177. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

An ‘Earnest’ musical effort

Few classics have defied musical emendation more than “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Since its 1895 premiere, Oscar Wilde’s immortal “trivial comedy for serious people” has attracted would-be Offenbachs and Audens like creditors to the aristocracy, as recently as San Diego’s Vantage Theatre dinner-show version in 2002.

The most celebrated example remains “Ernest in Love,” Lee Pockriss and Anne Croswell’s 1960 off-Broadway adaptation, now receiving a well-heeled revival at the Fremont Centre Theatre.

After valet Lane (James Ellis Lane) and solicitor Perkins (Richard Van Slyke) establish the noblesse oblige context, author Croswell introduces dualistic hero Jack Worthing (Brendan Ford, ideally earnest), beset by pre-proposal jitters. Next, comes Jack’s inamorata Gwendolen (Jacqueline Maloney, sweet-voiced without the requisite cunning), engulfed in engagement-slanted chapeaux choices.

Croswell and composer Pockriss redistribute the epigrams with thoughtful fidelity. The rakish confessions between Jack and Wilde-surrogate Algernon (Jared Zeus, energetic but short on acerbity) become a patter-happy paean to “Mr. Bunbury.” Jack proposes via the Ivor Novello-flavored “Perfection.” The interview with Lady Bracknell (Jayne Taini, morphing Patricia Routledge and Doris Roberts) erupts in a Gilbert & Sullivan gallop: “A Handbag Is Not a Proper Mother.” Rural ingenue Cecily (Kelly Lohman, aptly calculating) turns Palladium soubrette for “A Wicked Man.” Miss Prism and Reverend Chasuble (Amelia White and Richard Voigts, perfectly paired) indulge their flirtation, “Metaphorically Speaking,” and so goes the program.

Carol Doehring’s direction, Jane Lanier’s choreography and Dan Belzer’s music direction are tasteful and commendable. Standouts amid the designs are Evan A. Bartoletti’s versatile set and Peter A. Lovello’s Aubrey Beardsley-meets-Peter Max costumes.

However, Wilde’s incomparable text carries innate musicality, rendering underscoring redundant. The nacreous songs are no match for the nonpareil drollery upon which they intrude, with diminishing returns. Audiences who enjoyed Oliver Parker’s recent film distortion might appreciate this proficient, irrelevant diversion. Die-hard devotees may envy the ephemeral Bunbury.

-- D.C.N.

“Ernest in Love,” Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena. Thursdays - Saturdays, 8 p.m. Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Also Nov. 9, 16, 23, 30 at 7:30 p.m. Dark Thanksgiving; Ends Nov. 30. $24-$29. (626) 441-5977. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

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Historical couples on the couch

Romeo to Lancelot: “Nice pecs. You on steroids?” Lancelot: “No. Lithium.”

Wallis Simpson to Romeo: “What are your aspirations?” Romeo, uncomprehending: “My ass... ?”

Guinevere, complimenting Mrs. Simpson’s outfit: “It’s so deceitfully cut, with such a morose melange of material.” Mrs. Simpson: “Merci boutique!”

These are some of playwright Marc Mantell’s more memorable exchanges from “Madly, in Love,” a new musical that puts three legendary problem couples in therapy with the same exhausted shrink (Linda Kerns) and goes nowhere with them. For 2 1/2 hours.

Composer-lyricist Dan Alvy, not to be outdone, has his own clunkers for the hard-working cast. Here’s Juliet, singing about Lancelot: “Yes, he has the cutest face/But he seems from outer space.” Or the good doctor: “Sometimes I even get thanks/For enduring all this angst.”

Musically, Alvy’s score boasts one mildly striking motif, in Lancelot’s lament, “Guinevere & Arthur,” and one passable charm song, “My Favorite Partner,” an old-style tap duet for Edward and Mrs. Simpson (choreography by Dan Mojica). The rest is chug and slop, neatly dispatched by a three-piece band and sung with heroic conviction by the cast.

David Galligan’s robotic direction only heightens the cartoonishness, as actors slam randomly back and forth through the metal doors of Dorian Vernacchio’s imposing, vaguely sci-fi set.

“Waiting for Something to Happen” is one character’s first-act wish number. It’s the audience’s theme song throughout.

-- R.K.

“Madly, in Love,” Peralta Productions and Shoestring Productions at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. (No performance on Nov. 27; added performance, Nov. 30, 7 p.m.) Ends Dec. 14. $20. (310) 477-2055. 2 hours, 30 minutes.