In ‘South Pole,’ workers frozen by broken spirits

“We’re all South-Poled out,” Braukmann (Steve Pickering) says to his wife (Dale Dickey) late in Manfred Karge’s extraordinary if ungainly political parable “The Conquest of the South Pole.” He’s trying to assure her the odd pastime he and his buddies have been pursuing in his attic -- reenacting Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen’s 1911 polar journey -- is winding down.

We may share Braukmann’s exhaustion by this point, but that is no doubt Karge’s aim: to put us in the funk alongside these “unemployees” in a small, depressed German mining town in the 1980s. These stiffed workers’ malaise is so deep, Karge suggests, that they feel as lost and snow blind as men on a Sisyphean search to find the center of an unpopulated block of ice.

Leading this cloudy vision quest is Slupianek (Rob Kahn), a firebrand with an often wrenchingly quixotic intensity. Along for the ride are pent-up Buscher (Ben Shields), strapping Seiffert (Christopher W. Jones) and near-mute Frankieboy (Nina Sallinen). The journey’s high point is a rousing sledge ride, play-acted with a table, chairs, ragtag costumes and hand-held lights.

The ostensible climax is a tense, drink-fueled party with a crude, condescending boss (Peter Blood) taunting the workers and his jittery blond wife (Pat Caldwell). Here the play’s Brechtian undertones, previously played for queasy laughs, come blazing out in earnest.

Pickering’s bold, often blunt direction extracts the most from this strange brew, and the design is stunning top to bottom -- literally, in the case of Travis Gale Lewis’ ramshackle expanse of a set. Kevin Rittner’s sweeping sound design likewise feels as large and cheerless as the tundra.

-- Rob Kendt

“The Conquest of the South Pole,” the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays (except 3 p.m. Nov. 7, 14 and 28). Ends Dec. 12. $20.50 to $25. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

*

Filmmaking is war in topical ‘spec’

“Think microcosm,” barks a wannabe film director to his long-suffering, still unpaid scriptwriter, in the face of their zero budget. “Give me a virus that wreaks havoc -- but only on one city block.”

Tom Grimes’ sardonic movie biz parody, “spec,” is bound to find a receptive audience here in L.A., although its relentless absurdity sometimes puts it at odds with its own darkening tone, and with the efforts of a hardworking Alliance Repertory Company cast trying to add depth to cartoon characters.

Grimes’ 1990 play about a film project used as a cover for Middle East covert military operations has been updated with references to Halliburton, the new Bush administration and other current events, but its essentially unchanged underlying structure and message remain remarkably topical.

Snappily directed by Scott Campbell, the play’s merciless barbs about soul-corrupting Hollywood as metaphor for national imperialism hit their targets with deadly accuracy. The lawyer-turned-aspiring-director, Al (John LeMay), wheedles the schlemiel writer, Mike (Joe Gregori), with double-talking arrogance worthy of P.T. Barnum -- or a present-day spin master.

But Al and his protege are easy marks when a shady producer (Tim Abell), in league with a special ops commando (Mark Sivertsen) and a smuggler (Rod Rowland), dangles an irresistible get-rich quick opportunity: a lavishly funded location shoot in a hotbed of political turmoil.

The performers bring admirable conviction and intensity to their roles, but they’re constrained by the play’s unwavering one-note mordant humor when the war movie film shoot inevitably gets overrun by real war. Al can’t step outside his cinematic reality for a human moment -- even when one of his team is shot, he only snaps: “Don’t go all Method on me.”

As a result, it becomes increasingly unclear how the audience is supposed to take what it’s watching. A more congruent tone would make a smart play into a truly dangerous one, worthy of its caution that “history is something we forget and repeat.”

-- Philip Brandes

“spec,” Alliance Theatre, 3204 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 14. $20. (800) 595-4849 or www.tix.com. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

*

Lifelines cast into ‘Bluefish Cove’

Have 25 years really passed since the late Jane Chambers’ “Last Summer at Bluefish Cove” struck the mainstream like an expertly cast fishing line with a piercing hook? Despite dated details, this landmark look at love and loss in a Long Island lesbian enclave retains the ample point it had in 1980, when its premiere was a gay theater breakthrough roughly analogous to Mart Crowley’s 1968 “The Boys in the Band.”

As designer Bob Blackburn’s sound moves from feminist classics to ocean noises, we hear a fishing reel. Sandy Lee’s lights reveal protagonist Lil (the understated Nicole Marcks), upon whom “Bluefish” turns. Newly separated homemaker Eva (Libby West, excellent), who is clueless about the cove’s proclivities, intrudes on Lil’s reverie. Their unspoken attraction temporarily halts with the arrival of Lil’s longtime summer companions, who surpass archetype through the Chekhovian care with which Chambers draws them.

There is Lil’s college roommate Annie (an invested Laura Philbin Coyle), co-parenting the children of divorced partner Rae (Leslie Upson, fine). Wealthy Sue (the apt Cathy Ladman) and opportunist Donna (CB Spencer, very funny) have a dysfunctional relationship that overrides gender issues. Only cultural changes dim the effect of closeted celebrity Kitty (Peggy Goss, channeling Catherine O’Hara) and her “secretary” Rita (Cerris Morgan-Moyer, ideal).

Sue Hamilton’s intimate staging weathers minor quirks to achieve delicate tragicomic results. Barring the noticeably bare interior of Victoria Profitt’s otherwise impeccable set, the designs are evocative. Though slow to build, Marcks reaches touching depths, exhibiting real chemistry with West’s tremulous novice. Goss’ grandiosity and Coyle’s reserve form the poles of a well-chosen company, which recommends this effective anniversary revisit.

-- David C. Nichols

“Last Summer at Bluefish Cove,” Davidson/Valentini Theatre, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, the Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. No shows Thanksgiving weekend. Ends Dec. 5. $20 and $25. (323) 860-7300. Running time: 2 hours.

*

The ‘Big Picture’? Maybe too big

Execution battles intent in “Scenes From the Big Picture,” which launches Furious Theatre Company’s first season in the Balcony Theatre Upstairs at the Pasadena Playhouse. Owen McCafferty’s acclaimed study of 24 hours in modern Belfast receives a worthwhile yet frustrating U.S. premiere.

At its 2003 National Theatre debut, “Big Picture” enraptured the London critics, who drew comparisons ranging from Dylan Thomas to Robert Altman. Playwright McCafferty takes a camera obscura look at assorted residents of a city (and country) whose wounds from centuries of conflict may never heal.

Their intersecting plotlines, written in a notable seriocomic voice, emerge, disappear, develop and return with gyroscopic logic and microscopic realism. A tobacco shop, a slaughterhouse office, a drug dealer’s digs and a raucous pub are among the key locales.

Director Damaso Rodriguez oversees an imposing 21-member ensemble, many doubling as designers and technicians, who all manage the ultra-choreographed scene changes (barring awkward act endings). They are literally tireless, giving detailed portrayals with plausible accents across the board. Designs are lean but proficient, especially Christie Wright’s lighting and the sound plot by Eric Pargac and Vonessa Martin.

Yet the technically impressive, hyper-kinetic staging dominates to distraction, blurring the accrued overview. At the reviewed performance, I found myself too often worried about tripping the performers traveling the aisle rather than getting lost in their stories, which seems McCafferty’s point. Irish theater aficionados and Furious supporters should check it out, but, regrettably, this honorable effort is inconclusive, a series of display turns struggling for unification.

-- D.C.N.

“Scenes From the Big Picture,” Balcony Theatre Upstairs at the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 21. $15 and $24. (626) 356-PLAY or www.furious theatre.org. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

*

The ‘Architect’ of a shaky life

A house of cards made of tabletop sugar packets: It’s what one character in “The Architect of Destiny” is building when we first see her, and it’s what Michael Gianakos’ funny, featherweight psychiatric comedy of errors amounts to under Mark L. Taylor’s breezy direction.

A sour note or a lull in the screwball pacing would topple the play’s delicately jokey momentum, but Taylor and his matter-of-factly quirky cast don’t drop a beat.

At the quivering helm of the proceedings is twentysomething Mark (Simon Helberg), a frustrated, unemployed nebbish who evokes Jerry Seinfeld’s unhinged id. Angst-in-his-pants Mark seeks help but gets only silky-toned abuse from a dapper Freudian shrink (Nick Ullett).

This doctor clearly has a problem with boundaries. Not only does he invite Mark’s pharmaceutically addled parents (Aaron Lustig, Becky Bonar) into the room, he and the folks intrude on Mark’s first date with a nut job (Cori Clark Nelson).

This gathering of loonies later descends on the scene of Mark’s attempted suicide, where a suave sharpie in a sharkskin jacket (Anthony Cistaro) has just rejected this attempt at escape. He hands Mark a card: “Death, by appointment only.”

The result plays like Woody Allen shaded with David Lindsay-Abaire. You might even say it comes off a bit like a sitcom -- although, with its well-calibrated comic exaggeration and a brilliantly skewed, wildly colored set by Nathan Matheny, “The Architect of Destiny” is like a live-action rendition of a particularly good animated sitcom.

-- R.K.

“The Architect of Destiny,” presented by the Inkwell Theater at the Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 14. $20. (866) 811-4111. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

*

Pain in ‘Damages’ proves unpalatable

Actor Jay Pickett is a veteran of daytime drama, an experience that no doubt proves valuable as he delivers the overheated dialogue assigned to his character, a survivor of priestly sex abuse, in the new play “Damages.” Sample line: “He’s Lucifer, and I hope the D.A. sends him to hell.”

However sincere the intentions behind this project might be, the presentation now on view at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre teeters between stomach-clenching topical drama and middling melodrama, between therapeutic inquiry and sheerest exploitation.

The story, by R.S. Call, splits its time between the late 1970s, when a charismatic priest (Anthony Newfield) cultivated boys to be his “warrior angels,” and the present, as a now-adult member of that group (Pickett, a former star of the soap “Port Charles”) considers contacting a district attorney.

Call, identified in his program biography as a former Roman Catholic priest, incorporates details that have been coming to light with saddening regularity: A priest under suspicion is moved from parish to parish and allowed continued contact with children. Higher-ups try to keep matters hidden.

The backdrop: a crumbling church facade. With its symbolically stony face and glowing rose window, this structure, designed by Christian Eusebio and Aaron Gregory, is the production’s most impressive element. Richard Scanlon’s direction, which generates too little sense of forward momentum, is among the weaker aspects.

The abuse -- wrapped into secret rituals -- is bravely enacted by Newfield and young actors Jason Perez, Tony Persico and Yoann Cifuentes. Mercifully, Call realizes when to halt these scenes, leaving the rest to the audience’s imagination. But who can bear to watch?

-- Daryl H. Miller

“Damages,” Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 7. $25 and $30. (323) 960-7740. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.