Urchins lurchin’; hokum spoken

This weekend at the Los Angeles Music Center, you can witness a grandiose staging of a timeless theatrical work filled with passionate scenes of poverty, jealousy, love and revenge, told in a manner that remains a wonder of simplicity and power. Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” is that work, and Los Angeles Opera’s mounting of it opens Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Sidney Kingsley’s “Dead End,” which opened Wednesday night at the Ahmanson Theatre, on the other end of the Music Center, also deals with poverty, jealousy, love and revenge. But this revival -- the first production by the Center Theatre Group under new artistic director Michael Ritchie -- prompts no wonder about why the play hasn’t been done on Broadway since its original staging closed almost 70 years ago.

No, this big, bold but mostly boring production proves that there is precious little that can be described as timeless, passionate or powerful in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Kingsley’s 1935 tale of street urchins, gangsters, gamines and gimps crowded into a slum neighborhood on New York’s East River.

With “Dead End,” the playwright tried to capture the street vernacular of the time -- “Yew da noo kid onna block, aintcha?” and “On Foist Avenoo between Fifty-toid and Fifty-fawt” are two examples of Kingsley’s precision -- but when performed today, sadly this anthropological approach serves to fossilize the language rather than animate it.

As opposed to a work like Henry Roth’s novel “Call It Sleep” (published the year before “Dead End”), which holds up as an evocative rendering of tenement life, Kingsley’s writing in “Dead End” feels like nostalgic hokum.

The playwright’s progressive ideas and frank dialogue were no doubt engaging at a time when jobs and onstage vulgarity were scarce. History tells us that the play ran for almost two years at the Belasco Theatre -- with Eleanor Roosevelt even calling for a command performance of it at the White House.

Today, however, both the play’s politics and its parlance are no longer fresh, and even though Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was applauding from down front on opening night, it’s doubtful he’ll be passing out copies at City Hall.

It’s not surprising, then, that this new production fails to reveal “Dead End” as a forgotten masterpiece. What is surprising is that director Nicholas Martin treats the play as if it were a sacred text.

Little has apparently been cut (except a few lines about communism -- an odd choice given the play’s setting), and nothing has been done about the play’s unwieldy structure. Act 1 ends with such a lack of force that the audience seemed confused when the lights came on to signal the first intermission.

Since the play is not a staple, why didn’t the creative team trim and rework things a bit, much as William Wyler and Lillian Hellman did for the 1937 film adaptation, which was Oscar-nominated for best picture? As it is, the play feels much longer than the simple plot about snitching requires.

What the creative team of “Dead End” can be proud of is an incredible feat of production design. The Ahmanson has been host to some of L.A.’s most famously overblown theatrical relics -- “Phantom” ’s chandelier, the helicopter from “Miss Saigon,” even Charlton Heston -- but James Noone’s set threatens to trump them all. Looking as if they were transplanted directly from the 20th Century Fox back lot, the four stories of tenement buildings are certainly impressive, as is the huge tank of water in the orchestra pit that impersonates the East River.

Unfortunately, those many molecules of hydrogen and oxygen provide the only cohesive ensemble in this first production of Center Theatre Group’s 2005-06 season. Forty-two actors are on hand, but with a couple of exceptions, most do not feel in sync with one another. The crowd scenes feel hastily blocked, and although the cast does perform with a great deal of energy, on the whole it lacks conviction.

This is especially true of the collection of young actors who play the Dead End Kids. Apart from their looking far too healthy -- their postures and physicality suggest more time spent on treadmills than on bread lines -- the actors’ “Noo Yawk” accents are anything but consistent. Their performances, like those of most of the cast, are eminently professional, but they always seem to be “play-acting,” and at times the piece feels like a sort of old-fashioned “Bowery Boys” skit that might be more at home on the Universal Studios Tour.

This is not to say that this production is entirely dead on arrival, but only at one point does it ever really come alive. This occurs in the middle of Act 2, courtesy of actors Jeremy Sisto and Pamela Gray.

The role of gangster-on-the-lam Baby Face Martin is not a particularly good one -- even Humphrey Bogart couldn’t entirely make it work in the film version -- but Sisto is a strong presence onstage, and his halting speech patterns and fluid gestures help flesh out the somewhat two-dimensional character.

Likewise, the role of his old flame, Francey, comes dangerously close to cliche. Still, Gray makes the most of this small part, imbuing Francey with a painful realism that one wishes were more present throughout the show.

With the help of Michael Krass’ costume, Gray is the precise embodiment of Kingsley’s description of Francey in the text: “She carries herself loosely. Droop-shouldered. Voluptuous S-shaped posture. There are no clothes under the cheap, faded green silk dress.” Gray even adds to this image as she moves in such a way that the straps of her dress are always threatening to fall off her shoulders.

In their one scene together, Gray and Sisto’s nuanced interplay grants the audience access to the back stories and inner lives of both characters: the vulnerability of the hardened criminal and the regret of the career floozy.

Eventually, Sisto’s Martin realizes that running off with his old fling is just a pipe dream, and the result is a masterful display of nonverbal acting. The frustrated aggression with which Sisto kisses Gray goodbye packs an emotional wallop. Then each actor follows with a series of walks, gestures and looks that express shame, loathing and loneliness better than any of Kingsley’s speeches.

This moment is a brief but stirring reminder that the most impressive stagecraft is not the result of spectacle but rather of a believable and captivating interaction between human beings.

Yes, the set is magnificent, and it has helped give the Ahmanson a novelty that should bring new people to the theater. But ultimately, more performances like those of Sisto and Gray will be necessary to keep audiences coming back.

With “Dead End,” Ritchie has started his tenure with a splash, but perhaps he should step across the Music Center this weekend and listen to “Pagliacci.” To paraphrase a bit of advice from the monologue that opens that classic opera about onstage realism: “Think not of our theatrics and costumes, but of our souls.”

*

‘Dead End’

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; 7 p.m. this Sunday, Sept. 18 and 25; 2 p.m. Sept. 29, Oct. 6 and 13; dark Oct. 5

Ends: Oct. 16

Price: $20 to $75

Contact: (213) 628-2772, www.CenterTheatreGroup.org

Running Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Tom Everett Scott...Gimpty

Jeremy Sisto...Baby Face Martin

Ricky Ullman...Tommy

Sam Murphy...Spit

Kathryn Hahn...Drina

Sarah Hudnut...Kay

Joyce Van Patten...Mrs. Martin

Pamela Gray...Francey

Dennis Cockrum...Hunk

Benjamin Platt...Philip Griswald

Charley Lang...Mr. Griswald

Dohn Norwood...Doorman

Trevor Peterson...T.B.

Greg Roman...Dippy

Adam Rose...Angel

Josh Sussman...Milty

Leo Marks...Jack Hilton

Ian Barford...Patrolman Mulligan

Luce Morgan...Wealthy Lady

Walter Beery...Wealthy Gentleman

Carol Androsky...Governess

By Sidney Kingsley. Directed by Nicholas Martin. Set by James Noone. Costumes by Michael Krass. Lighting by Kenneth Posner. Music by Mark Bennett. Sound by Kurt Kellenberger. Fights by Rick Sordelet.