Tobacco Road tragedy in Arkansas

Playwright Coby Goss’ fascination with a notorious 1913 murder in his home state of Arkansas inspired “Marked Tree,” a brooding period portrait of rustic Americana that receives an impeccable staging from NoHo’s Road Theatre Company.

Fine ensemble performances and breadth rather than depth of vision distinguish this speculative account of the doomed romance between runaway waif Amanda (Stephanie Stearns) and her headstrong young lover, Arthur Tillman (Brad Benedict), who was hanged for her brutal slaying.

Debate over Tillman’s guilt continues to this day, and be forewarned that Goss makes no attempt to resolve the controversy. Instead, his focus is on evoking the memorable, sharply delineated inhabitants of an impoverished farmland community metaphorically situated somewhere between Tobacco Road and Hooterville -- all haunted by, and sharing complicity in, a tragic event.

Goss’ characters assume vivid realism, sometimes in merely a few lines of concise, biting dialogue. Stearns in particular brings a compelling mix of sexuality, naivete and impulsiveness to the doomed Amanda, nicely complemented by Benedict’s sullen resentment at the ties and expectations that keep him homebound to his coldly indifferent father (Ken Zavayna).

Lance Guest supplies the haunted figure of the older farmhand with a checkered past locked in a triangle over Amanda; K.C. Marsh is her abusive father. As the clear-sighted, unapologetic local prostitute who takes the girl under her wing, Suzanne Friedline evokes tenderness without sentimentality.

While the story is involving and well paced, it suffers from a shortage of deeper purpose and meaning that would better connect the sprawling, episodic narrative, which despite its artistic liberties still seems dramatically constrained by its historical roots. There isn’t much to take away from the piece beyond a deep sadness at human futility.

What the play lacks in depth and ultimate answers, director John DiFusco makes up for in atmosphere and visceral, realistic detail -- trademark Road Theatre Company strengths that frame this gripping and unsettling tale.

-- Philip Brandes

“Marked Tree,” Road Theatre at Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Nov. 15. $20. (818) 761-8838. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

*

Death on the Mexican border

“The Women of Juarez” (“Las Mujeres de Juarez”) at the Frida Kahlo Theater is not so much a play as it is an indictment.

The drama, performed in Spanish and English with an English translation by Eve Muller and Liane Schirmer, concerns the mass murders that have terrorized the women of Juarez, Mexico, for the past 10 years.

By concentrating on the fate of one young factory worker, writer-director Ruben Amavizca places those murders in a strikingly human context, pulling no punches when it comes to placing blame -- particularly on the corrupt Mexican officials who have botched the case from the beginning.

The piece is flawed, sometimes bordering on the inept. A case in point is the strangely undynamic scene in which the young heroine, Maritza (Arely-Lorena Araniva), is waylaid by the shadowy murderers who claim her life. While Maritza is being savaged in the background, two civic boosters (Carlos Albert and Laura Vega) rattle off rosy statistics about Juarez’s economic prosperity. It’s keen irony, but unwieldy execution blunts the effect.

The production’s occasional lack of expertise is mitigated by an avid and naturalistic cast. Although too young for the role, Ingrid Marquez is excellent as Maritza’s bereaved mother, whose grief pushes her into political activism. She is well balanced by Pedro J. Ortiz as Maritza’s hard-working father and Juanita Devis as Maritza’s scrappy younger sister, whose flighty adolescence is rudely interrupted by Maritza’s murder.

Amavizca seldom sensationalizes his subject matter, but the statistics are nonetheless overwhelming. At least 261 women have been slain since 1993, according to the Mexican attorney general’s office. Their families now clamor for justice, and Amavizca lends an effective voice to that outcry.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“The Women of Juarez,” Frida Kahlo Theater, 2332 W. 4th St., Los Angeles. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 6 p.m. In English Sept. 26-28. Ends Oct. 5. $12. (213) 382-8133. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

*

Non-Jaglom fans need not attend

According to cinematic legend, when Henry Jaglom’s feature film debut, “A Safe Place,” screened at the 1971 New York Film Festival, it so polarized the audience that near-fisticuffs broke out in the aisles.

I pray no scuffles occur at the Skylight Theatre premiere of Jaglom’s original stage version, the basis of the film, but intermission chatter should be sassy. This surreal dramedy about an enigmatic Manhattan sprite and the men through whom she finds herself is both febrile and frustrating.

“Safe Place” starts in a cafeteria, where unsettled heroine Noonie (Tanna Frederick) encounters guileless Fred (Eric Meyersfield), a CPA and aspiring writer of Harold Lloyd-ian aspect. Their Pinter-gone-Marx Brothers exchange initiates a stream-of-consciousness coupling.

Confounding this are Noonie’s intimates, particularly ex-lover Mitch (Gerry Katzman), who challenges Fred’s ability to provide Noonie with the title’s metaphoric haven. At the hyper-symbolic ending, Noonie evidently attains sanctuary by outstripping Icarus. Maybe, per Anais Nin’s interpretation of the film, it’s a waking dream.

Under Kim Furst’s direction, the execution is resourceful. Victoria Proffit’s set and J. Kent Inasy’s lighting maintain their customary standards, and Stasha Surdyke’s vintage costumes are effective.

As Noonie, Frederick’s quicksilver range is arresting, turning her rational, pre-Raphaelite quality inward with inscrutable results. Meyersfield’s unaffected locomotive outbursts offer expert counterpoint, Katzman’s eroticism is palpable, and David Weisenberg’s deadpan Sandy is a standout cameo.

However, Jaglom’s writing, though certainly determined, is inconclusive as dramaturgy. When the nonsequiturs and ironies connect with context, an inimitable energy suffuses the proceedings: the Frida Kahlo seance, for example, or Fred’s transvestite modeling for Noonie. Yet the digressions slow the onstage trajectory and blur the emotional point.

I neither loved nor hated “A Safe Place” -- it mainly bemused me. But I suspect it will intrigue the auteur’s fans, while giving his detractors dyspepsia.

-- David Nichols

“A Safe Place,” Skylight Theatre, 1816 1/2 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 5. Mature audiences. $25. (310) 358-9936. Running time: 2 hours.

*

A fable based on switched identities

Craig Lucas’ wryly subversive “Prelude to a Kiss” parlays one of our most deep-seated relationship fears -- that our partners might not turn out to be the people we thought they were -- into a sweet romantic modern fable about appearance vs. inner beauty.

Stan Roth’s sparse staging for Pacific Resident Theatre’s revival pares the externals to suit the story’s simplicity and finds its way to the play’s considerable wit and charm -- but only after a shaky start.

Lucas’ conceit is to make the metaphorically false identity of the beloved into a literal one when a seemingly innocent kiss between a nervous new bride (Molly Schaffer) and a mysterious old man (Orson Bean) unhappy with his life results in their exchanging bodies.

The veteran Bean mines comic and ironic possibilities galore when -- possessed by the mind of the transplanted bride, Rita -- he’s reunited with his “husband,” Peter (Jason Huber). Their brief domestic partnership while they try to figure out a way to reverse the switch provides the show’s biggest laughs as well as its most touching moments of true affection.

For her part, Schaffer skillfully navigates the violation of everything she initially established about Rita’s former character as well as the enthusiasm with which the old man’s spirit embraces its youthful new body -- and the calculating lengths to which it will go to avoid relinquishing it.

The initial meeting and whirlwind courtship between Rita and Peter needs more tightening and clarity, however -- in the establishing scenes we’re told more about these two than we’re shown. The insomniac but still high-functioning Rita doesn’t appear as fearful of the precarious nature of the world as she professes, and Peter, while a nice enough guy, seems free of inner turmoil to the point of dullness. In short, we need to see more upfront of the untidy forces that drive them into each other’s arms and raise the stakes when their marriage is threatened.

-- P.B.

“Prelude to a Kiss,” Pacific Resident Theatre, 705 1/2 Venice Blvd., Venice. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Nov. 9. $20-23.50. (310) 822-8392. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

*

This ‘Orange’ leaves a sour taste

A quartet of thugs in distressed motocross gear circles a wobbly wino, canes and chains at the ready. After some obligatory grunting and scraping, the Carl Orff blares and the pulled-punch pummeling begins. Are we having fun yet?

So goes director Brad Mays’ new staging of “A Clockwork Orange,” in which dubious taste and lame fight choreography grapple with portentous cliches and wildly variable acting styles. Everyone loses in the bargain, but no one more so than author Anthony Burgess, whose 1962 novel raged with poisonous, double-edged irony at the excesses of both liberty and conformity.

Stanley Kubrick’s icy, stylized 1971 film missed many of the novel’s nuances, but Mays’ muddled rendition is practically nuance-free. Video screens offer a makeshift phantasmagoria of snuff film, sweaty porn and X-rated anime; authority figures speechify about the sanctity of free will, as if the nihilistic violence of our unreliable protagonist, Alex, had no social dimension at all.

The production’s only glimmer of interest is the unlikely casting of a young woman -- boyish, spiky-haired V.C. Smith -- as Alex. She’s an impish punk sprite with a hypnotic presence, though her delivery occasionally trips up on Burgess’ tongue-twisting Cockney/Russian dialect, and she has all the physical menace of a Pokemon. No surprise, then, that the show’s best moments come in the essentially passive second act, as Alex’s reconditioning into “goodness” unspools with a coolly mounting horror.

Still, as a vehicle for Burgess’ ideas, let alone most of the talents assembled, this “Orange” is a lemon.

-- Rob Kendt

“A Clockwork Orange,” Ark Theatre Company at the Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 26. $20. (323) 969-1707. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

*

Sheer purgatory in the Middle East

Born in Beirut to a Palestinian father and a Jewish mother, Shakir Yusif Farsakh strives to make sense of the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict in “Convergence,” a world premiere presented by the Blue Sphere Alliance at the Lex. Couched in half-baked mysticism, his well-meaning play loses meaning and momentum in Anthony Barnao’s ponderous staging.

The earnestness of all involved in this endeavor is palpable. But in this case, the road to purgatorial theater is paved with good intentions. The mouthpieces for Farsakh’s impassioned dialectic are Amos Eitan (Herzl Tobey), an officer in the Israeli military, and Mahmoud Yacoub (Roy Avigdori), a Palestinian terrorist who recruits “martyrs” for suicide bombings.

In the arc of the action, which does not become remotely coherent until late in the play, Amos and Mahmoud appear as ghost-like kibitzers in the enemy camp, unseen by their adversaries. (We realize later that, in this sketchily explained “convergence,” Amos and Mahmoud are dreaming events that actually occur.) In one scene, Amos watches in bemusement as a Palestinian woman (excellent Sarah Ripard), who is about to give birth, is fatally delayed at an Israeli checkpoint. In another scene, Mahmoud sees a Palestinian suicide bomber blow himself up in a crowded Israeli nightclub.

The trick is that these key events are repeated in various permutations, over and over again -- an irritating device in this already overlong and wordy context.

It’s apparent that Farsakh intended his play as a road map for rapprochement, but the fact that these characters require supernatural intervention before they moderate their views is the unintentionally discouraging message of the evening.

-- F.K.F.

“Convergence,” The Lex, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees Sept. 28, Oct. 5 and Oct. 12, 3 p.m. Ends Oct. 18. $20. (323) 957-5782. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.