‘Russians’ provides 100-proof laughter

Somewhere in Russia, unfazed by the Ukrainian election fracas, a farmer named Ilia thinks only of America. Although devoted to his lactose-free cow and latke-voiced mother, this sweet-natured Slav longs for the capitalistic opportunities he sees depicted in his favorite American films, such as “Striptease” and “Free Willy.”

After 72 tries, Ilia’s immigration-minded letter to an invented California address connects with a local who finds the synchronicity, like, awesome. This spurs Ilia to leave mooing Marta and keening Mama and head for the United States, protected by a talismanic potato in his pants.

His American dream quest forms the vodka-soaked core of “The Russians Are Here!” at Theatre 40. Creators David Laird Scott and Ilia Volok turn their politically incorrect two-hander into something more promising.

Volok’s endearing naif maintains his persona even while engaging in wild physical clowning and groaning verbal puns. Scott plays everyone whom Ilia encounters with ripe farcical chops. When these two comic finds hit their stride, as in the farewell party, or Ilia’s romance with a Los Angeles Zoo official’s daughter, “Russians” is flat-out funny.

What this “Kids in the Hall”-flavored showcase now needs is directorial oversight. Though resourceful, the video segments require better integration, while the script could easily lose 15 minutes of extraneous business and stand-up vulgarity. Yet, as the final twist reveals, “The Russians Are Here!” is essentially a wacky, warm-hearted parable, and both its talented stars are going places.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Russians Are Here!” Theatre 40, 241 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 19. $18-$20. (310) 364-0535. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

*

Erik Ehn’s chilly scenes of winter

Meet Erik Ehn’s version of the Little Match Girl: She shouts obscenities and hurls invective. She threatens and cajoles. But if you wait a minute, she’ll revert to the vulnerable child, shivering in the snow, whose flame is extinguished in Hans Christian Andersen’s sadly beautiful tale.

The story keeps changing direction and circling back on itself, its language sharp and glinting, like glass that has been shattered and glued crazily back together.

Such are hallmarks of Ehn’s hallucinatory, poetic style as he retells “The Little Match Girl” as “Matcher in the Nigh” and Andersen’s “The Story of a Mother” as “Blister.” Bottom’s Dream presents the plays under the collective title “FireFlow.”

Both are wintry tales, chilled by mortality. Artfully presented, they nevertheless fail to make much of an impression, due in part to the stubbornly oblique language and in part to the works’ brevity (“Matcher” is just 20 minutes long, “Blister” a half hour).

Angela Kang, in torn tights and fingerless gloves, leads off as the girl who, on a killingly cold night, tries to interest passersby in buying her matches. Julia Prud’homme, barefoot and dressed in tatters, follows in the second half as a mother who chases after Death in hopes of retrieving her sickly child. Additional characters include Michelle Noh as a jazz-singing nightingale in the first tale; Doug Sutherland stalks through both stories as Death.

Puppet theaters, suitcases and drifts of snowy lace symbolically occupy Susan Gratch’s set, starkly illuminated, in Trevor Norton’s design, by the cold light of winter. Words and images crystallize under James Martin’s direction.

As a metaphor for life’s evanescence, both tales imagine a shirt being carried off by a current, unraveling as it goes. “I am a shirt unthreading,” the Match Girl says. Frost-tinged, the words seem to whisper: So are we all.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“FireFlow,” Bottom’s Dream at Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Fridays through Sundays. Ends Dec. 19. $15. (310) 226-2818. Running time: 1 hour, 5 minutes.

*

Stage 52 inflates Genet’s ‘Maids’

Thief, prostitute and theatrical innovator, Jean Genet patterned his life in broad sweeps of excess. Excessive, too, are Genet’s writings, which tend to be as florid and overwrought as the man himself.

Not that excess can’t translate into gripping theater. However, “The Maids,” Genet’s 1947 one-act about two siblings who plot to kill their employer, gets overblown in its current staging at Stage 52.

Genet’s play was inspired by a 1930s murder case involving the Papin sisters, two French maids who killed their mistress and her daughter in a bloody rampage that shocked the nation. One of Genet’s early works, “The Maids” was prototypically absurdist, written in the fervid poetical style so typical of Genet.

Some Genet scholars argue that “The Maids” should be played by men in drag, and indeed, the flouncing, diva antics of the characters can seem the stuff of caricature. While they ferret out a fair degree of psychological tension, director Stuart K. Robinson and his worthy cast occasionally overemphasize the piece’s inherent camp.

Although she chews the scenery on occasion, Sofie Calderon gives the most gripping performance as Claire, the younger sister, whose incest-tinged games of dominance and submission with her older sister Solange (Inger Tudor) are the most vivid aspects of their drab lives. The sisters alternate at playing Madame, a game that is only interrupted with the arrival of the real Madame (Dawn Greenidge).

Mirroring the play’s role reversals, Tudor and Greenidge switch roles at alternate performances. Dan Mailley’s striking set is suitably luxurious, as are Heather Carleton’s sumptuous costumes -- gowns to kill for.

A note to the director. Having Claire expire with open eyes is a mistake. Calderon’s ability to keep her eyes open in a fixed gaze without blinking is a neat trick, but the audience focuses on that, rather than Solange’s crucial closing monologue.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“The Maids,” Stage 52, 5299 Washington Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends Dec. 18. $20. (323) 769-6243. www.cgtproductions.com. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

*

‘God’ is in eye of the beholder

Blind belief in the face of grim reality dominates “Eye of God” at the Rude Guerrilla Theater Company in Santa Ana. Tim Blake Nelson’s allegory about a fading Oklahoma hamlet racked by a grisly murder has plenty on its darkly poetic mind.

Film actor Nelson (“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) avoids conventional chronology in his zigzagging scenario. Our narrator is Rogers (James Manley Green), the sheriff of Kingfisher, Okla., who sets up the situation in flashback. Its key figure is Ainsley (Jami McCoy), a lonely waitress about to meet paroled Jack (Darrin James), the convict to whom she has been writing.

Born-again Jack’s quiet conceals unsettling depths, while his hangdog parole officer (Steven Parker) bares his own crosses. Meanwhile, Ainsley’s world-weary co-worker, Dorothy (Karen Harris), frets over 14-year-old Tom (Tony Green), the nephew she has raised.

After Rogers and his deputies encounter the mute, bloody Tom wandering by the reservoir, “Eye of God” swings through time like a pendulum, ending just before the crime.

The involved cast, which includes Jessica Aldridge, David Cramer and Jaryl Draper, inhales the property, and Brit Masterson’s stylized lighting is evocative. But director Andrew Nienaber’s undoubtedly admirable understatement creates lank tempos that diffuse rather than build intensity.

Then again, Nelson’s nonlinear script seems more suited to cinema (he made a film of it in 1997) than stage. The constant scene shifts and Act 2 revelations feel like overkill, the eye metaphors obviated and the Abraham/Isaac simile murky. Guerrilla fans should give “Eye of God” a look, but the frissons require a leap of faith.

-- D.C.N.

“Eye of God,” Rude Guerrilla Theater Company, 200 N. Broadway, Artist Village, Santa Ana. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays, 8 p.m., Thursday, Dec.16, only. Ends Dec. 18. Mature audiences. $15. (714) 547-4688. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

*

The graying of once-hot writers

They call themselves “two funny guys,” but they’re not laughing much nowadays. Once a hot television comedy-writing duo, the title characters of “Marvin and Mel” are growing older and, as a result, are being written off by the networks and even by their agent.

Such treatment is by no means isolated to the entertainment industry, of course. Anyone in our youth-obsessed society who’s had the audacity to age past, say, 35 should be able to recognize Marvin and Mel’s plight.

The script -- by George Tricker and the late Neil Rosen -- has trouble converting this empathy into rueful humor, however. Although front-loaded with agreeable character quirks and one-liners, the story turns unaccountably angry, then outlandish and, finally, weepy. Not even the fun of seeing a couple of genuine articles from television’s past -- Bernie Kopell (Dr. Adam Bricker on “The Love Boat”) and Robert Pine (Sgt. Joe Getraer on “CHiPs”) -- in the title roles can counterbalance the massive bummer that the show induces in a revival in Sherman Oaks.

As the story begins, Kopell’s antic Mel is trying to tease some humor back into Pine’s recently widowed Marvin. But the only time Marvin can muster a half-smile is whenever Marie Gomez (Lorena Mena, alternating with Darlena Tejeiro), the door-to-door deli gal, stops by their office. Her rejuvenating presence gives Mel an idea: She could pitch the partner’s scripts as her own. Young and attractive, she’s just what the networks are looking for.

The story goes kablooey not long afterward, but even before it does, momentum bogs down in the gaps that keep yawning open between lines. Perhaps director Richard Kline (Larry Dallas on “Three’s Company”) needs to call a few brush-up rehearsals. And he’d better hurry, before the punch lines age into worry lines, then wrinkles.

-- D.H.M.

“Marvin and Mel,” Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. No performances Dec. 24-25 or Jan. 1. Ends Jan. 9. $25; New Year’s Eve, $35. (323) 960-7829 or www.plays411.com. Running time: 2 hours.