Clarity in revision of classic

Charles L. Mee’s “Iphigenia,” the third and final offering in City Garage’s “Three by Mee” season, offers yet another reconsidered Greek classic by Mee that seems as timely as today’s headlines.

In the most straightforward staging of the three plays, Frederique Michel brings a no-frills clarity to Mee’s occasionally overstated text, while Charles Duncombe’s striking production design richly evokes the Theban seaside where the action transpires.

“Agamemnon,” the first play in the trilogy, treated Agamemnon’s murder by his vengeful queen, Clytemnestra. The second play, “The Bacchae,” showed a prideful king at odds with the god Dionysos and his female revelers.

“Iphigenia” picks up Agamemnon’s fortunes just before the Trojan War, when Agamemnon, at the insistence of his troops, makes the fatal decision to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, as proof of his commitment to the conflict.

Troy Dunn once again plays Agamemnon, but this time, he is a gentler king before he has been brutalized by bloodshed and his own folly. Reprising the role of Clytemnestra, Marie-Francoise Theodore charts her character’s progression from loving wife to unyielding adversary. Crystal Clark’s Iphigenia shows the titanium backbone under the maidenly exterior.

“Iphigenia” is foremost an antiwar play, but it is more fascinatingly an incisive look at the tragic disconnect between the sexes. Surrounded by her vapid bridesmaids -- a refreshingly cheeky element in Michel’s somber staging -- Iphigenia fears suffocating in a domestic vacuum more than her own death. Hungry for the meaningful life that society denies her, she embraces her fate with the zeal of a suicide bomber. It’s a brilliantly revisionist denouement, and a fitting conclusion to City Garage’s ambitious, rewarding season.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Iphigenia,” City Garage, 1340 1/2 4th St. (alley), Santa Monica. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 5:30 p.m. Sundays. Dark Dec. 18-Jan. 11. Ends Feb. 4. $20. (310) 319-9939. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

A dysfunctional Lone Star yule

They do things bigger in Texas. That includes boozing, brawling and acting out in hugely outrageous fashion.

At least, that’s the way they do things in “Texmas,” William Wright’s world premiere comedy, now at the Third Stage in Burbank. Wright’s hilarious look at a Texas clan’s disastrous Christmas could have been written by that master of family dysfunction, Justin Tanner, whose own “Happytime Xmas” plays a lot like “Texmas” -- without the accents. Although Wright may not blaze any new trails in the genre, director Matt Roth and an inspired cast offer up a rollicking entertainment with bells on.

It’s fitting that Tanner himself appears in the cast as Dorsey, a gay television actor who returns to Houston for a family Christmas but should have known better. Accompanying Dorsey is Anson (Cody Chappel), a blissed-out yoga instructor who is getting fed up with Dorsey’s pill popping and snits.

But when it comes to snits, Dorsey’s mom Dot (Danielle Kennedy) takes the rum-soaked fruitcake. Secretly married to good ol’ boy Jimmy George (Joe Reynolds), a maintenance man half her age, Dot is a powder keg whose predictable eruptions bring the cops out to the house every year.

Included in this colorful menage are Dorsey’s sisters Tammy (Sheila Shaw), the sober voice of reason among this hard-drinking crew; Pam (Maile Flanagan), a sodden barmaid who is looking for love in all the seediest places; and Robin (Rebecca O’Brien), a born-again boozer whose Big Gulp cup conceals a bottomless supply of wine.

Of course, the characters soon give up on the merrymaking and let the sheer misery of the occasion wash over them -- torture for them, bliss for us. For a hoot and a holler, as well as some of the finest acting you’ll see anywhere, book a visit to “Texmas.” It’s flowing over with the 100-proof spirit of the season.

-- F.K.F.

“Texmas,” Third Stage, 2811 Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Also Dec. 21 at 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 22. $20. (818) 842-4755. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

Lorca’s drama of love’s dark side

It is hard not to sympathize with “Don Perlimplin and His Love for Belissa in the Garden,” presented by California Repertory at the Studio Theatre in Cal State Long Beach. Adaptor-director David Zinder’s take on Federico Garcia Lorca’s short drama of love’s dark side, originally scheduled to open in late November at the Empire Theatre, had to reconfigure itself in two weeks’ time after an engineering report resulted in the Empire’s temporary closure.

Given that last-minute sea change, the technical aplomb of all concerned is admirable. The Cal Rep flair for organic decor attends Danila Korogodsky’s set, a glassy two-story modern edifice upstage of a severe thrust, with red-swagged portals about the audience. David Martin Jacques lights it with masterful density.

As costumed by Joan Goodspeed, conflicted Don Perlimplin (Donald Formaneck), who cuckolds himself, is a Dali-jacketed Lorca surrogate. Belissa (Kree Fieldsa), his amoral bride, goes from bare breasts to Harlow-meets-Hayek lingerie. The don’s dour housekeeper (Karen Kalensky) could moonlight at Bernarda Alba’s; Belissa’s fortune-hunting mother (Debbie McLeod) is a Spandex-clad heartland hairdresser; and the duendes (Mark Frankos, Beth Froehlich, Sarah Goldblatt and Josh Nathan) suggest irreverent Disneyland employees.

Regrettably, neither Zinder’s ambitious concept nor ultra-poetic script coalesces beyond dutiful formalism. Even a deconstruction of Lorca’s parable about the ironies of love, gender and power could turn on our senses like a knife, and we wait in vain for that to happen here. Formaneck and Fieldsa are fearless, but their qualities commingle without combustion, and the difficult sightlines are wearing. Although it’s a gallant effort, the net effect of “Don Perlimplin” is academic, best suited to scholars and company supporters.

-- David C. Nichols

“Don Perlimplin and His Love for Belissa in the Garden,” Studio Theatre, Cal State Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach. 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 6:30 and 8 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Dec. 16. Ends Dec. 16. Adult audiences. $20. (562) 985-5526 or (562) 985-7000 or www.calrep.org. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Confounding, but crowd loves it

Doctoral candidates in cultural anthropology will hit pay dirt with “The Edwards Twins in Celebrities on Stage,” which played Saturday at the Colony Theatre, where this touring show will return in January between Thousand Oaks dates.

The premise is Borscht Belt basic. Identical twins Anthony and Eddie Edwards imitate celebrities to recorded arrangements, in elaborate makeup and costumes, including Cher’s notorious Brazilian-cut get-up.

Eddie does the divas, starting with Bette Midler, who sets up the effective pandering device of dividing the house, encouraging applause at recognized tunes, and there are many. He has a phenomenal vocal instrument, as his Streisand confirms, though all the women repeat the same brush-back-hair-and-smile gesture.

Anthony mainly does men -- Neil Diamond, Elton John, Sonny Bono. If the aural snarl in Neil’s “Fly” recurs in Sir Elton’s “Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road,” or Sonny seems a bit rote, the mimicry is impressive, in a flashy, Madame Tussauds kind of way

They are undeniably gifted illusionists, and their crowd-friendly parade will thrill audiences who find a casino showroom or community concert series the apogee of entertainment. Whether it is theater is debatable. The protracted finale -- Anthony does a rapid-fire plethora of singers, Eddie sheds the feminine before our eyes, they duet on “You and Me” from “Victor/Victoria” -- certainly thinks so. On Saturday, so did the Burbank audience, which went berserk over the Edwards’ human audio-animatronics. Thousand Oaks will surely follow suit. This reviewer can only marvel in disbelief.

-- D.C.N.

“The Edwards Twins in Celebrities on Stage,” Colony Theatre Company, 555 N. 3rd St., Burbank. 8 p.m. Jan. 12. (888) 740-9079. Janet and Ray Scherr Forum Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. 8 p.m., Jan. 6, Jan. 26. Ends Jan. 26. $39 and $49. (805) 583-8700 or (213) 480-3232 or www.civicartsplaza.com. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.