Fluffy but funny ‘Life’ in a Cuban rhythm

An adolescent boy tells his Cuban immigrant father, “I had to be in the drama club!” “Why?” inquires Papi. “None of the gangs would take me.” Such quips typify “Life’s Funny That Way,” writer-director-actor Luis Avalos’ new comedy about an Angeleno clan upended by a dance craze known as the “chonga.”

The narrative apes Neil Simon’s Eugene Jerome trilogy, framed by son Tony Garcia (Roberto Enrique) addressing the audience from the apron of Francisco Stohr’s fine set. Tony’s acting ambitions don’t impress his father, Jose Antonio (Armando Di Lorenzo), though he has an ally in his mother, Lourdes (Virginia Pereira).

She, when not enduring novela-loving Tia Angustia (Rosemary Orozco), mainly worries about Tony’s sister, Rosie (Denise De Quevedo), who is blooming. Conspiring with neighbor Betty Rodriguez (Rebecca Brand), Lourdes enrolls Rosie with swivel-hipped dance guru Chuchu Pepinaso (Avalos). Rosie’s potential swain, Rigo (Gregory Esparza), is also a student, with foreseeable pandemonium ensuing.

The pert performers sustain this fluff. Pereira’s courtship recollections are affecting, and she works wonderfully with DiLorenzo’s apoplectic patriarch. The three talented youngsters are engaging, Orozco and Brand are hilarious, and Avalos, suggesting Xavier Cugat on Aleve, rumbas away with the show.

However, the Broadway-sitcom contours undercut the sweet-spirited central examination of clashing cultures. The winking Spanish-language wit is underused, and Chuchu deserves fuller development.

Technical considerations overall are solid. Rudy Zalez’s choreography is noteworthy, but sight lines vary and accents are erratic, blurring authenticity.

Such gaps may be attributed to Avalos’ triple hats; an outside eye couldn’t hurt. The crowd at the reviewed performance was wildly enthusiastic, though, and viewers seeking lightweight populist fare may appreciate this unpretentious diversion. Audiences are funny that way.

-- David C. Nichols

“Life’s Funny That Way,” El Portal Circle Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Sept. 28. $15-$18. (323) 850-5028. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

*

It makes you crave some meaning

“If this makes no sense, then you understand perfectly,” says M, one of the four characters in Sarah Kane’s “Crave.”

What a relief. I was having my doubts about whether I understood “Crave” much at all.

Four plainly dressed characters named C (Catherine Drummond), B (Mark Coyan), A (Mark Palkoner) and M (Kristina Leach) sit in a row facing the audience at Hunger Artists Theatre in Fullerton.

They spit out phrases and sentences, sometimes seemingly at random. At other times the words appear to signify that A is desperately in love with a despairing C, while B and M have a somewhat more guarded, cynical relationship.

But trying to decipher the bones of a narrative here is beside the point. In a program note, director Todd Kulczyk says Kane’s text is “the closest thing to music you can get and still be a play.” He calls it “a new form of theatre, thinning the line between song, poetry and the normal play format.”

This sounds interesting on paper, and the cast marshals considerable passion as well as precision. Less than an hour long, “Crave” isn’t especially draining, but neither is it particularly memorable. The shards of the text quickly lose their edge and recede on the way home.

Those who saw Kane’s “Cleansed” last year in Santa Ana may be either pleased or disappointed to learn there is no graphic sex or violence here, as there was in that play. “Crave” is a relatively dry exercise, not an expressive manifestation of the cravings these characters feel.

-- Don Shirley

“Crave,” Hunger Artists Theatre, 699-A S. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 28. $15. (714) 680-6803. Running time: 55 minutes.

*

Pub theater minus liquid refreshment

Plays are supposed to be more than talk, right? Please, no one tell that to Conor McPherson. He’s done just fine as a sort of Guinness-steeped Scheherazade, one part barfly blowhard to three parts master fabulist.

It’s more than merely an Irish gift of gab; McPherson has the uncanny ability to give tales of ordinary life the plangency of folklore without skimping on the chill factor. In a series of mostly solo shows (“The Good Thief,” “St. Nicholas”), his male characters unspool yarns as darkly vivid as faerie stories, as disarmingly funny as any observational comic. Even his acclaimed multi-character play “The Weir” is at bottom a series of bravura monologues.

So is his 1995 play “This Lime Tree Bower,” now in a modest, affecting L.A. premiere in the stuffy, low-ceilinged basement of Gardner Stage III. A sort of three-man solo show, “Lime Tree” has its actors take turns telling tales that eventually circle a single narrative; the performers acknowledge the audience and one another but don’t interact per se. The result, under director Rand Marsh, has the engaging offhandedness of pub theater; when opening-night latecomers knocked on the theater door, actor Seth Macari walked over and casually opened it. “Come on in,” he said, “we’re doing a play.”

Though design elements are rudimentary at best, and the actors -- roguish Macari, soulful Jeremy Stevens, callow Robert Andrus -- occasionally sacrifice intensity for self-satisfied intimacy, the production’s no-frills single-mindedness ultimately puts McPherson’s shaggy-dog storytelling in a better light than a more well-groomed production might.

-- Rob Kendt

“This Lime Tree Bower,” presented by Seventy-Six Productions at Gardner Stage III, 1501 N. Gardner St., Los Angeles. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m. Through Sept. 20. $12. (323) 769-5061.

*

Pirandello proves to be evergreen

Pirandello’s name may still be invoked as shorthand for “self-referential,” but it’s a safe bet that his convention-shattering early 20th century plays are more often invoked than performed these days.

Besides, what news could Pirandello possibly deliver about the line between fiction and reality to audiences who’ve seen Fellini, let alone “Survivor”?

The best thing about director Robert Benedetti’s so-so new update of Pirandello’s greatest play, here titled “Six Characters Looking for a Writer,” is that it proves the original’s profound durability. When a family of tragically half-formed characters bursts in on a theater rehearsal, they represent an existential quandary: Essentially they’re appealing to a lesser authority because their higher authority -- their creator -- has left them unfinished but still craving meaning, structure, narrative. (Cue Godot.)

This is strong enough stuff to survive Benedetti’s minor tweaks and asides: references to reality TV, Method acting, Buddhism and theater subscribers, and a semisuccessful video feed (smooth videography by co-director David Lee Kelting).

Thankfully, most of the performances are solid. As the family’s ineffectual patriarch, Daniel Tamm has unshakable gravity, and as his resentful stepdaughter, Beth Tapper is furiously present. As actors at rehearsal, flinty Irene Roseen and clueless George Christopoulos have their moments.

A less fortunate choice is broad, blustering Donna Pieroni in the central role of the Director; the gender change is not a problem, but Pieroni’s flouncing, ladies-who-lunch hauteur is. That’s what you get when you appeal to a lesser authority.

-- R.K.

“Six Characters Looking for a Writer,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Oct. 19 and Nov. 2, 3 p.m. Ends Nov. 2. $20.50-22.50. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 1 hour.