Strangers share a moment of truth

In Matt Duggan’s new play, “False Positive,” three strangers, who meet at an HIV testing clinic, share an intense emotional connection while awaiting their test results. Although he occasionally lapses into the soap-operatic, Duggan exploits that situation to taut dramatic effect in John James Hickey’s disciplined and truthful staging at the Elephant Theatre Lab.

Vinnie (Eric Johnson), a self-destructive substance abuser whose gay brother is dying of AIDS, is one of the understandably anxious patients awaiting the results of his test, along with adult film star Cindi (Kimmin O’Donnell), a sweet soul for whom disease is a constant threat, and stunned businessman John (Chris Pauley), whose sole infidelity may have cost him and his pregnant wife dearly. Dawn Joyal plays the sympathetic nurse who instructs all three to return in a week for their final results.

That taut opener goes slack when Duggan has his characters convene to a restaurant for some soppy chat about their lives and fears -- a convenient camaraderie that rings false, as does a bizarrely tacked-on movement segment that incorporates the Postmodern Japanese discipline of Butoh. These segments seem a violation in tone, especially when the same dramatic objectives could have been more effectively achieved in the clinic itself, the ideally existential setting where the real grist of the play occurs.

Still, Hickey exacts wrenching performances from his excellent cast, and Duggan delivers a harrowing denouement that is fittingly arbitrary, much like the disease his play treats. For these damaged souls, ignorance is not bliss, but fatal folly.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“False Positive,” Elephant Theatre Lab, 1078 Lillian Way, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends April 11. $15. (323) 960-8865. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

*

Modern parallels in 50-year-old play

At City Garage, Santa Monica’s bastion of European avant-garde theater, productions often tend to leave audiences intrigued but scratching their heads trying to puzzle out the meaning of what they’ve experienced. While artistic director Frederique Michel and designer Charles A. Duncombe’s signature penchants for biting, abstract material and moody stagings are very much on hand for their revival of novelist-poet-composer-playwright Boris Vian’s “The Empire Builders,” their intentions are anything but ambiguous.

A backdrop of sound bites from news coverage of the ongoing war on terrorism brings a specific contemporary context to Vian’s 50-year-old allegory about a complacent bourgeois family’s abdication of its most cherished values in the face of an ominous, unseen threat.

Manifested as a thunderous pounding (the author had house-to-house searches during the Nazi occupation in mind), the nameless menace drives Father (Jake Eberle), Mother (Katharina Lejona), daughter Zenobia (Maia Brewton) and their maid, Mug (Maureen Byrnes), to seek illusory safety on successively higher floors of their apartment building. On each level, the rooms become fewer, the reconfigurable set more sparse and the family’s facade of respectable behavior more tattered.

Stark, selfish impulses come to the fore, as they bicker among themselves and vent their frustration by beating up a cowering, bandaged and bloodied figure (Cristian YoungMiller), his humanity almost unrecognizable except for his being pointedly black.

The play’s symbolism is often heavy-handed, and physicalizing its abstract characters taxes the cast’s performance skills. But the message is as clear as a crystal nacht, when Father wonders if isolation truly represents triumph over the enemy -- and if so, which one?

-- Philip Brandes

“The Empire Builders,” City Garage, 1340 1/2 4th St. (alley), Santa Monica. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 5:30 p.m. Ends April 25. $20. (310) 319-9939. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

*

Ageless confection is still sweet

The appeal of the unattainable, as old as forbidden fruit, is grist in the gears of Agustin Moreto’s exquisite 17th century comic timepiece, called “Spite for Spite” in Dakin Matthews’ crisp, conversational new verse translation.

If director Anne McNaughton’s production feels a bit perfunctory, with resplendent costumes by Dean Cameron but only a few trees and a painted drop for a set on the NewPlace Theatre Center’s tiny stage, it’s not for lack of verbal dexterity or performative relish.

Lance Guest and Julia Fletcher head the cast as Carlos and Diana, two will-be lovers whose desire is sharpened by a studied, competitive disdain, egged on by Carlos’ chucklingly deceptive servant Moth (Paul Willson, alternating with Matthews in the role).

All three leads give their lines bite and bounce: Guest with a lunging, leonine charm, Fletcher with a fan-snapping hauteur that thaws into a warm glow, and Willson with a conspiratorial, self-amused deadpan that evokes W.C. Fields. Without breaking a sweat, Willson earns his laughs with such sassy scene-closers as, “Roll up the rugs, it’s gonna start hoppin’ in here / Higher than hailstones off a horse’s rear!”

Machinations move along relatively fleetly, accompanied by Carl Smith’s pristine guitar accompaniment. A glaze of tedium does begin to congeal on a series of plodding dances and courtship rituals whose quaint formality is at odds with the rest of the production’s almost vaudevillian vigor. And the second act’s inevitable capitulations and clinches feel a bit long in coming.

Still, for a screwball confection as light as it is tasty, “Spite for Spite” hits the spot.

-- Rob Kendt

“Spite for Spite,” Andak Stage Company at NewPlace Theatre Center, 4900 N. Vineland Ave., North Hollywood. Wednesdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends April 4. $16. (818) 506-8462. Running time: 2 hours.

*

In search of

a B-movie queen

“Get a life,” a fed-up friend spits at Maroo Montrose, an indolent coffeehouse poet who is needy, immature and thoroughly irresponsible. Maroo wants a life all right, but it’s the life of movie actress Cathleen Wilder, whose roles in cheesy B movies the unfortunate young woman is forever trying to emulate.

So Maroo, desperate for something to believe in, sets off to try to meet the actress, with a fellow fan in tow. Their journey toward self-discovery is mapped with occasional spurts of adventurousness in Dennis Miles’ new play, “The Fan Maroo,” presented by Theatre of NOTE. But for the most part, the story heads in too many directions, its meandering paths converging only in the end.

The audience gets something to root for, at least, in Kirsten Vangsness’ portrayal of Maroo. Her hope burns so brightly that it’s impossible to withhold best wishes, despite the character’s off-putting personality defects.

Much the same is true of Gene Michael Barrera as pilgrimage partner Demuth, who, like Maroo, desperately wants to believe in miracles.

Technical aspects further boost the show -- primarily, the inventive turntable backdrops designed by Monroe Makowsky and director Kiff Scholl, and the wonderfully bad film clips devised by Scholl, cinematographer Lila Javan and editor David Conner.

It is primarily in the film clips that we see the wonderful Carolyn Hennesy, whose evocation of Wilder is a guffaw-inducing pastiche of stilted B-movie mannerisms.

“The Fan Maroo” has the potential to be clever and inspirational, much like “Dirty Blonde,” with its similarly misfit Mae West fans. As is, though, it’s a flickering approximation of the real thing.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“The Fan Maroo,” Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays to Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends April 17. $15. (323) 856-8611. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes. Nudity.

*

‘Indians’ touches on many themes

The wooden Indians embody a proud history reduced to kitsch. Stationed outside a bait and gift shop, they are mere props for tourists’ photos, though they get the last laugh by snapping to life just before the shutter clicks and making faces at the lens.

The title of Joseph A. Dandurand’s play echoes the plea on a hand-lettered sign posted with the statues: “Please Do Not Touch the Indians.” It’s being presented by Native Voices at the Autry, a program that nurtures Native American writing for the stage.

One wants to admire this show, especially for its simultaneous resemblance to age-old folklore and modern, nonlinear theater. But much of the intermission-less, 1 1/2-hour program is just plain baffling.

When no tourists (all played by Stephan Wolfert, a one-man United Nations) are around, the mated male and female statues (Andrew Roa and Arigon Starr) tell stories. They are joined in this activity by an excitable, adolescent coyote (Tonantzin Carmelo), an introspective raven (Kalani Queypo) and a hipster wolf (Uzziel Martinez).

A wily flycatcher, a boatful of singing fish, a two-headed baby, a seductive salmon and a grandmother beset by prankster grandchildren figure into a string of seemingly unrelated story fragments. In the broadest sense, these are tales of resourcefulness, harmony, revelation, romance, remembrance and so on -- evocations, perhaps, of life’s synchronicity. For then the show shifts abruptly to the slaughter of Native Americans during European conquest, described in such graphic detail that the show carries a recommendation that theatergoers be at least 15 years old.

Randy Reinholz directs with empathy and artistry; Vincent H. Whipple provides evocative Native American music and sound effects. Nice work, but it can’t forestall whiplash from all the shifts in narrative and tone.

-- D.H.M.

“Please Do Not Touch the Indians,” Wells Fargo Theater, Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Griffith Park. Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends April 4. $15. (866) 468-3399. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.