Where fear and fate meet

Life’s not about answers, it’s about decisions -- and the fears that control them.

That theme shapes “Drive,” Emily Dodi’s somewhat self-conscious but vibrant, well-acted play at Company of Angels, about two women at midlife crossroads, struggling to take the next step.

Fear of change and fear of failure define the lives of 36-year-old Grace (Vivian Bang), the wife of Yale professor Arthur (Tom Hartshorn), and 50-ish Queenie (Sarah Lilly, the play’s notable anchoring center), owner of a dive in the boonies. She’s hooked up with Honey (Andy Thompson), a young, seemingly opportunistic ex-con.

Grace, fleeing a suffocating marriage but unable to escape her husband’s critical voice (a device less pithy than pretentious), arrives at Queenie’s as Honey and solitary regular Jim (Scot Renfro) clash over the bar’s forthcoming sale.

As the storm worsens, those in the bar weather their own private storms. Grace and Queenie explore their fears through the prisms of their lives, with wisecracks from barfly Sally (wonderful Eve Sigall). Honey, meanwhile, sees his well-heeled future with Queenie unraveling.

Karen Weber and Renfro’s set is so authentic you can almost smell the stale beer and cigarette butts; Ben Anton’s light design adds realistic chill.

Arthur’s pomp and shoehorned literary references aside, the play, directed with finesse by Tony Gatto, is vividly alive. Dodi’s dialogue, leavened with wry humor, resonates. Even Bang’s note of high-pitched, self-indulgent desperation rings true as the characters choose between changing or capitulating to self-imposed limitations.

-- Lynne Heffley

“Drive,” Company of Angels, 2106 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; ends Aug. 8. $15. (323) 883-1717. Running time: 2 hours.

*

An 18th century Philadelphia story

Alternately teasing and trying, K.C. Davis’ ghoulish new mystery, “Raree,” somehow keeps our interest even after it passes all understanding.

Set in 1747 Philadelphia among a household of sisters, the action revolves around the arrival of a disheveled, discursive English poet (Kelly Boulware). For simpering Faith (Krista K. Carpenter), he’s a sort of mail-order heartthrob; for bitter Charity (Heather De Sisto), unhappily married to a meek pastor (Ira Steck), he’s a possible plaything. Also stirred by his presence, for murky reasons of her own, is housemaid Megan (Jenni Kirk).

In the mix are a ghostly redcoat (Matt Saunders), a blustery uncle (David Grammer) and -- to round out the references to Chekhov and St. Paul -- a third sister named Hope (Samantha Montgomery).

To realize the doggedly specific if enigmatic world of Davis’ play, director Thomas Craig Elliott demands wonders of Theatre/Theater’s tiny space, with Paul Pape’s set and Matt Richter’s lights straining a bit to suggest multiple settings and create a sense of foreboding.

The actors, particularly the dissipated Boulware and the dour, stoic Montgomery, acquit themselves well with Davis’ literate, often aphoristic dialogue.

Unfortunately there’s too much of it, and too little of it to a discernible purpose. Davis has a knack for creating unpredictable characters and disarming our expectations, but he uses it too liberally. By the end we’re not sure what story he’s been telling us or why.

That we wish we knew is a testament to a promising young company, Meadows Basement, which has mounted a credible production of an incredible play.

-- Rob Kendt

“Raree,” Meadows Basement at Theatre/Theater, 6425 Hollywood Blvd., Theatre A, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. $15. (323) 782-6218. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

*

Travails of a comedy troupe

Offstage tensions, destructive behavior and questions of identity threaten the survival of a success-bound Asian American sketch comedy troupe in Lodestone Theatre Ensemble’s production of Isaac Ho’s fraught new drama, “Claim to Fame,” at the Whitefire Theater in Sherman Oaks.

A clash over the control and creative direction of the fictional Five Chinese Brothers erupts when Daniel (Feodor Chin) campaigns for a shift away from stereotypical bits about Asians as sports disasters, math nerds and computer geeks toward edgier material.

His proposed sketches include a parody of Asian writers Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gus Lee and others (a wicked satire involving a demonic exorcism and mah-jongg). The group’s temporarily deposed leader, control freak Carl (Phil Young), however, sees the departure from their familiar fare as threatening the group’s survival and alienating “our white brethren.”

In the overheated power struggle that ensues, the group breaks into factions, one member’s obsession with another grows darker, relationships with significant others crumble and a bonding visit to a strip club erupts into violence and tragedy.

The capable cast (Chin, Young, Janis Chow, Janet Song, Yi Lin, Charles Kim, Eddie Mui, DC Wolfe and Leonard Wu) and director Alberto Isaac, bring passion to difficult material that plays like an overlong, still evolving work-in-progress; Victor En Yu Tan’s lighting and Cynthia Ignacio’s unfinished set pieces and stark framework of poles are suitably bleak.

-- L.H.

“Claim to Fame,” Whitefire Theater, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; ends Aug. 29. $15. (323) 993-7245. Running time: 2 hours.