Gaelic rhythm at fever pitch

In 1996, Martin McDonagh’s first play, “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” announced a major new voice in Irish theater. “Beauty Queen’s” acclaimed runs in London and New York (where it received four Tonys) launched McDonagh’s Leenane trilogy, named for a hamlet in Connemara.

The other entries, both from 1997, are “A Skull in Connemara” and “The Lonesome West,” the latter receiving a wild-eyed revival at the Odyssey Theatre. Written with McDonagh’s idiomatic scabrous humor, “West” follows the foul-mouthed Connors, two warring siblings who put the gall in Galway.

Coleman and Valene (Timothy V. Murphy and Kevin Kearns, authentic and audacious) bicker over everything with lethal ferocity. Why they even stay together since their father’s death emerges early on, revealing what all of Leenane, excepting alcoholic Father Welsh (the sensitive John O’Callaghan, a find), already knows.

Father Welsh -- or Walsh, everyone mixes it up -- despairs over his parish’s high morbidity rates, seeing a chance for redemption in the battling brothers. Moonshine runner Girleen Kelleher (the effective Corryn Cummins) sees in the feckless priest a chance for something as well, but it isn’t salvation.

“Lonesome West” has been compared to Sam Shepard’s work, not without some justification. Director Jack Rowe’s feverish forces embrace the fracas of Jameson Price’s fight choreography and devour the Gaelic rhythms. The proficient designs maintain the Odyssey’s customary standard, especially Victoria Profitt’s scrubbed-down setting.

More questionable is the lack of textual depth. “Lonesome West” is smart and slick without earning its tragic undertow. Still, the craft is admirable, and McDonagh’s fans should be sated.

*

-- David C. Nichols

“The Lonesome West,”Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays; 3 p.m. Aug. 29, Sept. 12, Sept. 26 and Oct. 10 only. Ends Oct. 24. Mature audiences. $20.50-$22.50. (310) 477-2055 or www.odysseytheatre.com. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Much more than just ‘victim art’

Walking into 2100 Square Feet, where the world premiere of Kathryn Graf’s “Surviving David” is playing, one is struck by the gallery of photographs in the lobby -- a cheerful collection that shows Graf and her late husband, David, at various happy moments in their lives. One picture -- a striking image of the Grafs in a lively, handsome wedding party -- was taken scant hours before David’s death.

In 2001, Kathryn and David were partying down at her brother’s wedding reception in Arizona when David, a popular actor most famous for his comical character Eugene Tackleberry in the “Police Academy” series, collapsed and died of a massive heart attack.

So what can you really say about a solo show concerning a woman whose husband dies abruptly, leaving her to cope with two small children alone? The subject matter excites such keen empathy that it’s difficult to judge it on its artistic merits alone.

Fortunately, under Tony Sears’ crisp direction, “Surviving David” transcends the dread label of “victim art” and proves an expiatory, thought-provoking treatment of sudden death and its aftermath.

Graf does a good job setting up the tragedy, establishing David as a winning wag, full of life and high spirits, close to his sons and still captivated by his wife. It’s the very ordinariness of the opening scenes, touchingly rendered here, that makes David’s abrupt death all the more wrenching.

Michael Raynor is credited as the show’s developer, and Sammie Wayne’s subtle lighting is crucial to the mood. Graf is effectively candid when it comes to describing her acute physical needs after David’s death, but she focuses on that subject somewhat obsessively while shortchanging other important emotional issues. However, in her loving memorial, Graf makes us feel her pain -- as well as the hard-won serenity of coming to terms with her loss.

*

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Surviving David,” 2100 Square Feet, 5615 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Ends Oct. 9. $20. (800) 595-4849. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

*

Modern alienation stripped bare

At first glance, Vladimir Nabokov’s 1938 novel, “Invitation to a Beheading,” might seem a natural inspiration for a solo performance piece. A feverish, surreal interior landscape penned by an imprisoned man awaiting execution for the nonsensical crime of “gnostic turpitude,” Nabokov’s absurdist portrait of life under a totalitarian regime contains much theatrical imagery, often equating reality itself with the artifice of the stage.

Nevertheless, in the Next Arena’s ambitiously edgy production at the Elephant Performance Lab, hardworking adapter/performer Scott Rognlien and director Jim Peters have not solved the challenges inherent in transposing Nabokov’s fundamentally literary work into a fully successful theatrical experience.

The biggest obstacle is that for all the intrigue and tension in protagonist Cincinnatus C.’s dire plight, telling a story is not the author’s objective. In fact, Nabokov is almost contemptuous of plot as his riotous stream of language careens from introspection to omniscient third-party narration. Instead, evoking a state of distinctively modern alienation and fragmentation is the main intent of this work, which has often been compared to the writings of Franz Kafka. The static, claustrophobic atmosphere resists dramatic involvement.

An appropriately sallow, haunted figure in a dark overcoat, Rognlien stalks the minimalist jail cell set like a refugee from a Tim Burton film. His Cincinnatus C. effectively hits two notes -- cringing victim overwhelmed by uncertainty and dread, and manic, arrogant egoist who considers himself above his puny tormentors. It’s a harrowing portrait of the schizophrenic mind-set needed to survive under the Soviet communism from which Nabokov ultimately fled.

Rognlien’s range unfortunately falls short when it comes to the other characters he tries to assume, including the hero’s deceitful mother, his nymphomaniac wife, and worst of all a fellow inmate named Pierre with a dark secret and an atrocious French accent -- a portrayal that makes a far better case for rechristening freedom fries than any political argument.

Philip Brandes

*

“Invitation to a Beheading,” Elephant Performance Lab, 1078 Lillian Way, Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Sundays. Ends Oct. 23. $20. (323) 878-2377. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

*

Is it a play? Or is it really a concert?

In some alternate entertainment universe, the Four Postmen are geek-chic rock stars with their own sitcom and a national following of lyric-parsing fans.

On this mundane plane of reality, however, they’re a struggling novelty act with a trunk full of quirky, catchy ditties, stage chops to burn and a small, rabid fan base that may indeed be wondering, as the title of the band’s new stage show puts it, “What the Hell Happened?” As in: Why aren’t these guys as big as Barenaked Ladies and “Mad TV” put together?

The answer suggested by this larkish bioplay/concert is that these five fellows -- the Four Postmen are actually a quintet and were founded as a trio -- seem so at home in a live, intimate theater setting that it’s not clear how well their up-close-and-personal charms would translate to TV, let alone MTV.

Proffering folksy power pop with pristine three-part harmonies, infectious hooks and tastily interlaced guitar lines, the Four Postmen strike an unlikely balance somewhere between the so-ironic-it’s-serious shamelessness of Tenacious D and the all-American showbiz sheen of “Forever Plaid.” Though the show includes a fair helping of mildly crude humor and a few obligatory drug references, this is a band that almost lost a founding member -- to grad school.

Would-be rocker Ken Weiler supplies some of the group’s most well-crafted tunes, including the affecting “Dumb Guy,” while the laconic Stefan Marks writes nervy, quasi-affirmative ruminations like “I’m Gonna Die.” Hammy Matthew Kaminsky hits soaring high notes and nails some low comedy, such as a riotous boy-band parody we won’t be seeing at the Super Bowl anytime soon.

Indeed, if relative obscurity and career frustration are what inspired this shaggy-dog romp of a show, the Four Postmen might be right where they belong.

*

-- Rob Kendt

“The Four Postmen: What the Hell Happened?” the Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., 2nd floor, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Ends Sept. 4. $12. (818) 754-4700. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

*

Twentysomethings on the make

Post-adolescent groping -- for meaning and true love as well as for cheap sex -- drives Wendy MacLeod’s aptly named “Juvenilia.” In roughly real time over the course of one aimless Friday night, the play traces the would-be peccadilloes of four twentysomethings on the verge of dubious graduation from a second-rate liberal arts college.

MacLeod seems to aim for a trenchant, post-politically correct tone in her treatment of class, race and gender politics, as the play’s three well-off white students try to rope a fourth -- a middle-class African American woman -- into a voyeuristic “three-way.”

But the effect here is Neil LaBute Lite, at least in director Leslie Morgan’s overly emphatic new production. Paradoxically, by having her actors overplay both the comedy and the straight stuff -- in the characters’ knowing pop-culture parlance, by putting everything in quotation marks -- Morgan takes the edge off MacLeod’s material.

To be sure, the broad strokes are in the script: Brodie (Scott Butler) is a macho slut who pretends not to care for anyone; his steely, perfect girlfriend Meredith (Vanessa Long) has the precocious cynicism of the alternately spoiled and neglected rich kid. Roommate Henry (Ryan Churchill) is sensitive and needy, a confused good guy with a crush on their neighbor Angie (Chris Brown), a professed Christian who proves more game than they’d imagined.

The sweetly befuddled Churchill comes off best, though even he’s mugging a bit. Like Scott Butler’s overly tidy dorm room set, the performances in “Juvenilia” are just too simply drawn to reveal any messy truths. Count this a college try.

*

-- Rob Kendt

“Juvenilia,” Faultline Theatre Company at the Gardner Stages, 1501 N. Gardner St., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays through Sundays. Ends Sept. 12. $15. (323) 461-0689. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.