A look at both sides of ‘Border’

City Stage’s second production in its handsomely refurbished space at the Hayworth, “Nowhere on the Border,” is not a perfect play. In fact, playwright Carlos Lacamara occasionally overstates his themes with an on-the-nose specificity that screams “message.”

But that’s a trivial shortcoming, considering the piece’s raw and poignant power. A timely drama that examines the immigration issue from several perspectives, “Border” exposes the corrosive edges of the American dream, and the desperation of those who risk life and liberty in its pursuit.

Under the astute direction of Bert Rosario, Lacamara delivers a powerhouse performance as Roberto, an unemployed Mexican copper miner who has come north in search of his daughter Pilar (Cheryl Umana). Accompanied by a drug-snorting coyote (Mark Adair-Rios) and an indigent horse trainer (David Michie), Pilar was trying to cross over and join her husband in the States. So far, Roberto’s search has uncovered some half-dozen bodies, claimed by the deadly terrain en route. But Roberto’s quest is halted by Gary (Patrick Rowe), a volunteer vigilante intent on protecting the American way of life from foreign incursions.

The action switches back and forth between Gary and Roberto’s confrontation and Pilar’s increasingly desperate journey through the desert -- an appropriately mythical milieu evoked by Miguel Montalvo’s colorfully artificial set and Kathi O’Donohue’s scorching lighting design.

The foremost strength of Lacamara’s play lies in its equilibrium -- its piercing insight not only into Roberto’s plight but also into the root causes of Gary’s racial resentment. A downsized steelworker whose son is serving in Iraq, Gary has also made a bruising journey through the American dream and wound up lost in his own dashed expectations. Although divided by cultural misapprehensions, Gary and Roberto share a common ground and a common humanity that transcends mere territory.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Nowhere on the Border,” The Hayworth, 2509 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends July 16. $20. (800) 838-3006. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

*

Hilarious peek behind scenes

Anyone who has participated in homegrown theatricals may applaud “A Chorus of Disapproval” at the Odyssey. When the offstage and onstage worlds of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1986 saga of an amateur production of “The Beggar’s Opera” collide, bubbling hilarity descends.

Set in the English provinces, “Chorus” follows Guy Jones (Roy Abramsohn), first seen performing Macheath in the finale of John Gay’s 1728 ballad opera. As the number ends in ham-fisted bravado, the cast exits with palpable disdain for Guy.

With a pull of the ragtag curtain that centers designer Charles Erven’s set-within-a-set, we flash back and learn why. Mistaken for a financial bigwig and a rake, hangdog widower Guy goes from bit player to star, punctuated by tickling excerpts from “Beggar’s Opera.” Guy’s relationship with Hannah (Caitlin Shannon), wife of clueless director Dafydd Llewellyn (Matthew Elkins), drives “Chorus” into faux-Chekhovian directions that are less conclusive.

Director Barry Philips knows his regional quirks and backstage babble, and he casts an endearing ensemble. As preening Dafydd, Elkins is ideal, from his first vocal intrusion on Guy’s audition to the chaos of the climax. Abramsohn imbues Guy’s reactions with priceless timing, and Shannon finds more comic edge to Hannah than Ayckbourn does. Other standouts include trombone-voiced Diane Hurley as a grande dame, Jaxon Duff Gwillim and Kimberly Patterson as arch swingers and Beverly Craveiro’s accompanist.

Although the designs are solid, the border between makeshift and comment sometimes smudges, and the inbred Act 2 slack leads to an unearned upbeat ending. Still, any play that cites “Chu-Chin-Chow” with reverence while skewering its essence is doing something right. “A Chorus of Disapproval” isn’t top-tier Ayckbourn, yet Anglophiles and theater junkies are unlikely to mind.

-- David C. Nichols

“A Chorus of Disapproval,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; 7 p.m. July 30, Aug. 27. Also 8 p.m., Wednesday, July 19, 26, Aug. 2, 9, only. Ends Aug. 27. $20.50-$25. (310) 477-2055 or www.odysseytheatre.com. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.

*

Playing with rules of theater

The word “play” is often bandied about in the theater world, typically as a noun. The folks at the Garage Theatre have chosen, however, to treat it as a verb.

Their frolicsome spirit is part of a larger experiment in which they’ve jettisoned the traditional rules of theater. Story structure? Goodbye. Lifelike dialogue? Ta-ta. Performers and audience alike are left to consider: What truly constitutes “performance”?

Right from the start, “Play: The Play,” collectively devised by the company, treats identity and reality as fluid constructs. Jeff Kriese is credited as director. But once theatergoers are settled into their seats, the director who steps onstage for a quick heart-to-heart is Kristal Greenlea, who is part of the performance. “We are not necessarily performing to be understood,” she says by way of explanation. “We are performing to understand.”

For a time, things go according to formula, as Jessica Variz portrays a hard-knock mom sent reeling by the news that her felon of a boyfriend is being released from prison. But as she slams around the set in heated conversation with Amy Louise Sebelius, playing a friend, a shelf gives way, spilling its contents onto the floor. Then a wall collapses, revealing the actors behind it awaiting their cues and, consequently, the artifice of theater.

Giving up pretense, Greenlea and company (also including Matt Anderson, Eric Hamme and Kate Langsdorf) gather onstage to come up with other ways of filling the allotted time: storytelling, acting exercises, even a game of Red Light, Green Light.

The results can be quite funny, though the underlying impulse is entirely earnest. The performers seem to get a lot out of the experiment. What theatergoers take away will depend on their willingness to play along.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“Play: The Play,” the Garage Theatre, 251 E. 7th St., Long Beach. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends July 22. $15. (866) 811-4111. Running time: 1 hour.

*

Low-key revival of classic ‘Laura’

The face in the misty light comes up blurry in “Laura” at the West Valley Playhouse. Vera Caspary’s women’s-magazine mystery novel receives a low-key revival by Woodland Hills Theatre Group.

Caspary grabbed the zeitgeist with “Laura,” the source of Otto Preminger’s classic 1944 film noir starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. Dramatized by Caspary and George Sklar, the plot begins after ad executive Laura Hunt turns up dead in her Manhattan apartment.

While questioning Laura’s intimates, detective Mark McPherson (Patrick Foley) finds himself falling for the victim’s portrait. At the Act 1 curtain, its subject (Noel Britton) enters, very much alive and suddenly a suspect.

As the title enigma, Britton has admirable restraint, avoiding cliches with a subtlety that recalls Margaret Sullavan. She looks great in ‘40s fashions, though costumer Don Nelson skimps on the hats and accessories of a careerist’s arsenal.

Elsewhere, the casting is variable. Foley, though talented, is too contemporary to make a fully convincing era gumshoe. Stan Kelly gives Laura’s patrician fiance apt affronted dignity, while Ryff Wolf plays fey Waldo Lydecker, the role immortalized by Clifton Webb, at an automated clip that dilutes his epigrams. Nancy Solomons’ housekeeper has hambone oomph, and so goes the roster.

Director Jon Berry’s dutiful staging has assets in Danny Truxaw’s lighting and David Raksin’s movie score, yet it doesn’t exactly crackle. Take Laura’s portrait, which should dominate Charles W. Hall’s interior set but lacks the requisite scale. Still, if little besides Britton goes beyond community-theater competence, subscribers should enjoy the nostalgia.

-- D.C.N.

“Laura,” West Valley Playhouse, 7242 Owensmouth Ave. Canoga Park. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2:30 Sundays. Ends July 22. $24. (818) 884-1907. Running time: 2 hours.

*

A pastiche of gangster tales

In the middle of the last century, black police officer Sylvester Washington, nicknamed Two-Gun Pete, was known throughout Chicago’s South Side for his prized pair of revolvers and his itch to use them. This real-life figure gives his trigger fingers a workout in the fictional play “The Chicago Club Rumboogie,” yet like so much else in this messy presentation, he fails to make much of an impression.

The MET Theatre has been rented for this presentation, produced by Carl Crudup, a company member there. He also plays one of the leading roles, as co-owner of a South Side watering hole forcibly made over as Club Rumboogie when a mobster demands a share of the business. Jerry Jones’ foreboding plot and tough-guy dialogue seem a mere cut-and-paste of cliches from gangster stories and noir movies. A deeper tale about racial tension is merely hinted at in this depiction of Italian mobsters muscling in on the neighborhood’s numbers games and nightclubs.

The staging is similarly catch as catch can. The large cast, under Chris Palmquist’s direction, appears to have been left too much to its own devices. Stringing hackneyed mannerisms into the merest approximations of character, the actors look awkward and self-conscious. The costumes, ranging across half a century, and the halfhearted, music-video-like gyrations of the floor show dancers leave viewers wondering which decade the production intends to evoke.

The story grinds to a halt during long scenes of nightclub entertainment, but at least the music generates some electricity, especially when smoky-voiced Carla Stephanie Bagnerise or Constance Denise take center stage to sing the blues with a five-piece band. And Two-Gun Pete? He’s around for so little of the action that actor Kenneth Foster can convey little more than gruffness and swagger.

-- D.H.M.

“The Chicago Club Rumboogie,” MET Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., L.A. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 13. $20. (323) 957-1152. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.