Mariette Hartley displays her indomitable spirit

Technically, the title of “If You Get to Bethlehem, You’ve Gone Too Far” points the way to the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut. Spiritually, it is far more complex for the remarkable Mariette Hartley, who drives this prismatic account of personal survival, based on her memoir, “Breaking the Silence.”

That 1990 bestseller provides the narrative, as Hartley seeks counsel from a former fellow starlet, now ensconced at the abbey. Repeatedly returning to the main armchair at the apron of director Don Eitner’s imagistic set, Hartley lets her life story flash before her eyes, and fleshes it out all over the place before ours.

This aspect sustains “Bethlehem.” Hartley, criminally underrated as an actress, embodies her history with penetrating feeling and tacit technique. Becoming alcoholic parents Paul and Polly with a register shift and a gesture, darting between mentors and nemeses on a hairpin turn, Hartley commands the house, her channeling of the legendary Eva Le Gallienne a magical highlight.

Although Hartley’s conversational, detailed writing is poetic, honest and wryly ironic, her text needs some refining to match Eitner’s atmospheric staging (J. Kent Inasy’s lighting is particularly invaluable). The initial sequences can lower designer Marc Perlman’s sound levels, and sharpen which parent is which, while judicious trims are advisable throughout. Endings abound, with the convent arrival, personal mission and final defiant state making for a disordered dramatic resolution. Yet there is riveting quality and singular purpose here, and Hartley’s talent is as vivid as her spirit is indomitable.

-- David C. Nichols

“If You Get to Bethlehem, You’ve Gone Too Far,” Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Feb. 26. (866) 811-4111 or www.theater mania.com. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Shut up and just sing, Varla Jean

She arrives on stage as Eve, her voluptuous curves encased in a nude body stocking, with a faux snake wrapped around her torso. Undulating like a burlesque performer, she provides her own musical accompaniment by singing Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.”

It’s another flashy entrance for that sultry siren known as Varla Jean Merman. Problem is: Once she’s on stage, she doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself.

Pondering the natural disasters and other calamities that have been piling up lately, Varla Jean, the drag persona of Jeffery Roberson, wonders whether they’re the punishment of an angry God. Her own behavior may be partly responsible, she admits. But as she cheekily declares in the title of this show at the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s Renberg Theatre: “I’m Not Paying for This!”

Through musical numbers and hammy videos, Varla Jean reveals her susceptibility to the seven deadly sins. Riffing on sloth, she pretends to be too lazy to sing one of the songs herself, so she waves her hands around that strange electronic instrument known as the theremin to produce a high-pitched, vaguely human-sounding rendition of the “Porgy and Bess” standard “Summertime.”

The videos amount to little more than variations on a single joke, however, often having to do with Varla Jean’s poor choice of lovers. Her giggly, self-obsessed patter between skits also proves fairly inane.

Even so, Varla Jean’s singing compensates for a host of ills. Performing in a dusky soprano that turns pop songs into classical arias, she’s so out of step with popular culture that she’s backhandedly hip. In this, she bears a certain resemblance to namesake Ethel Merman, especially when she launches into a ‘70s-flavored medley that calls to mind the Merm’s deliciously awful disco album.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“I’m Not Paying for This!” L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Feb. 5. $30. (323) 860-7300 or www.LAGay Center.org/boxoffice. Running time: 1 hour, 5 minutes.

To be young, gifted and deaf

The landmark success of “Big River,” Deaf West Theatre Company’s signature production of the Huck Finn musical, showed how seamlessly American Sign Language and spoken English could be integrated into an inspired dramatic whole.

On an intimate scale, “Reflections of a Black Deaf Woman,” by and with accomplished deaf actor and “Big River” veteran Michelle Banks, attempts to do the same thing, but though heartfelt and often funny, this effort only fitfully succeeds.

Directed by Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter at the Little Victory Theatre in Burbank, “Reflections” is the coming-of-age story of a deaf girl on a hard road to self-acceptance. It features Banks’ signed performance as young Azealea, her mother Miz and a variety of people the two women meet at checkpoints in their lives.

Theresa Sharp is Azealea’s loving godmother, onstage voice interpreter and concerned observer. An actor of notable warmth, her energetic voicings at times overpower Banks’ silent eloquence.

The show’s strength? Its leavening humor, both light and salty; Banks, with her vivid and eloquent facial elasticity, has a deft comic touch.

Accompanied by onstage musician Taumbu’s pulse-pounding drums, the play plunges unevenly into tragedy -- rape, miscarriage, abortion. Here, the sustained force of Sharp’s vocal pitch leaves little room for nuance, while Dr. Phil-ish flag words, including such earnest insights as “it was very healing for Azealea, dealing with her issues” skew the balance between theater and therapy.

-- Lynne Heffley

“Reflections of a Black Deaf Woman,” Little Victory Theatre, 3324 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays; ends Feb. 26. $20-$28. (818) 841-5422; TTY (818) 843-9253. www.thevictorytheatrecenter.org Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Judy Garland,

gay rights catalyst

A key event in the gay rights movement came in the early hours of June 28, 1969, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, resisted a police raid. The day before, thousands of gay men had swelled the throngs filing past Judy Garland’s coffin at a public visitation in New York, and one theory links the Stonewall rebellion to emotions already running high over the loss of a figure with whom gays so strongly identified.

In “Judy at the Stonewall Inn,” Tom O’Neil ponders what happened that night. Admirable for its ambitions, the story, presented at Celebration Theatre, nevertheless fails to develop beyond a dry recitation of historical details.

O’Neil, a pop culture commentator and columnist for The Times’ entertainment awards blog the Envelope, populates the dingy, mob-run Stonewall Inn with broadly drawn character types: a flighty go-go boy (played by Billy Briggs), a budding activist (Keith E. Wright), a guy who’s just beginning to explore gay life (Jon Powell) and the Mafia functionary (Stephen Marshall) saddled with operating the bar. At the story’s center is a Garland imitator (Michael Taylor Gray) who struggles to break through to his self-hating mama’s boy of a lover (Johnny Debut). Nervously popping pills, this faux Garland suddenly finds himself on the same plane as the recently deceased real thing (Amanda Abel).

Weighed down with contextual explanations about sodomy laws, arbitrary arrests and early liberation efforts, the dialogue turns leaden in a Derek Charles Livingston-directed presentation that, as of opening weekend, remained hesitant and awkward.

-- D.H.M.

“Judy at the Stonewall Inn,” Celebration Theatre, 7051-B Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Feb. 26. $20. (323) 957-1884 or www.Celebration Theatre.com. Contains nudity. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.