A terrifying trek gains poignancy

In “Wit,” intellectualism is all. Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a female scholar’s struggle with cancer has been rightly heralded for its sophisticated language and philosophical depth. But scratch the glittering surface of Edson’s cerebral peregrinations, and you will uncover a movie-of-the-week premise, artfully embellished though it may be.

It’s Edson’s central character, Dr. Vivian Bearing, a celebrated John Donne scholar who frequently breaks the fourth wall to address the audience directly, that gives Edson’s arguably over-treated premise new levels of poignancy and profundity.

Bravely bald and devoid of makeup, Linda Livingston, who plays Bearing in Transport Theatre’s production at the Big Victory Theatre, carefully strips her character of any artifice. Director John Slade also lends Edson’s potentially arch construct a bracing naturalism, as does his capable cast, which includes Thomas W. Ashworth, Regina Mocey and Gina Hugo. The sub-99 seat Big Victory affords a harrowingly intimate perspective on Bearing’s brave struggle.

Pay close attention to the spelling of the play’s title. In Bearing’s exalted academic sphere, punctuation is never accidental. That seemingly errant semicolon is not a typo but a clever allusion to a primary theme, namely the unfathomable division between life and death. For the fortunate, that divide is an easy passage, traversed in a single breath. For others, it is an agonizing journey taxing the outermost limits of human endurance.

In Bearing’s case, it’s a prolonged and painful trek, a bruising plunge from the lofty into the elemental. In this solid and workmanlike production, we feel every step of that terrifying passage.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Wit,” Big Victory Theatre, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 6. $20-$28. (818) 841-5421. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

*

A literary journey with Williams

The world knows Tennessee Williams for the poetically abstracted realism of such plays as “A Streetcar Named Desire,” but his restless imagination also took him into the realms of political commentary and grim, almost absurdist humor.

In Santa Ana, Rude Guerrilla Theatre Company has arranged five of his one-act plays into a literary journey called “The Long Goodbye.” Familiar characters and themes are revisited in “Portrait of a Madonna,” about an addled Southern belle who’s being shipped off to the state asylum, and the title one-act “The Long Goodbye,” in which a brother mourns his inability to help his struggling, unhappy sister. Performing blemishes and tonal variations weaken these presentations, but the program deepens as emotionally injured lovers (Arturo Jones and Jamie Lieberman) reunite in “Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen .... “ Delivered in alternating phrases of English and Spanish, the piece is directed by Michael David Fox.

The post-intermission plays plunge into parallel worlds in which despotic governments have set about annihilating anyone they don’t like. Humor commingles with horror in Sally Norton’s staging of “The Demolition Downtown,” as two couples (Wendy Braun and Jay Lewis, Alyson Fainbarg and David Chorley) -- their faces ghostly white, their bodies frozen by indecision -- try to maintain a semblance of normalcy as explosions advance ever nearer.

“The Municipal Abattoir,” written in the late 1960s or early ‘70s but just recently brought to light, presents an allegory about a man (Rick Kopps) meekly plodding off to his government-ordered execution when he encounters a young revolutionary (Paul Pakler) and a chance to alter his fate. The piece is all the more powerful for the understated way in which Dave Barton has staged it. The shock of recognition awaits.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“The Long Goodbye,” Empire Theatre, 202 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 5. $18. (714) 547-4688. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

*

French connection in Culver City

French delicacies are the summer fare at Dr. Paul Carlson Memorial Park. Culver City Public Theatre presents Jean Giraudoux’s classic “The Madwoman of Chaillot” and Jean Anouilh’s farcical “Thieves’ Carnival” in its annual season of free outdoor performances, with variable results.

“Madwoman,” written during the German occupation and posthumously produced on Broadway in 1948, is a whimsical social satire. After discovering oil in the sewers, a corporate cabal, spearheaded by actors Sean Cory, Leon Cohen and Tom Hyer, plots to drill the City of Light into oblivion. Standing between these “pimps” and their goal is Countess Aurelia (Laura Boccaletti). After cartel go-fer Pierre (Uriel Ross) and the colorful Chez Francis denizens affirm that the world has gone madder than she ever was, this deliberate fantasist faces reality.

In between mourning her lost feather boa and urging romance upon Pierre and waitress Irma (Rebecca Fennell), the Countess confers with her Ragpicker (Steven Lekowicz) and fellow eccentrics (Sarah Bogatti, Teresa Waxer and Donna Donnelly). A subsequent kangaroo court and allegorical outcome yields Giraudoux’s moral: “There is nothing so wrong in this world that a sensible woman can’t set it right in the course of an afternoon.”

The apt timeliness of Giraudoux’s fable sustains Nancy Cheryll Davis-Bellamy’s sweetly collegiate staging. It puts its moral across past humble trappings, though Diane McGee’s costumes have some oomph, and city park technique. Boccaletti is more determined than deranged, but she and the large cast dig into the storytelling.

“Thieves,” written in 1938, is another matter. Set in the city of Mardi Gras, it follows three pickpockets (Jared Krichevsky, Dean Edward and Lekowicz), who conspire to rob the aristocracy. Yet patrician Lady Hurf (Heidi Dotson), her Einstein-wigged brother (Eric Billitzer) and their marriageable nieces (Janet Osborne and Dayna Schaaf) are more than the thieves bargained for. Add in father-son fortune hunters (Hyer and Seth Bateman) and story-framing cops (Jim Conner and John Glass), and a frothy bubble should ensue.

Here, it bursts. Anouilh might have enjoyed the spirit with which the company tackles this cream puff. It’s hard to picture him happy with so few real laughs. Chris Berube’s flat direction permits labored bits and declamatory acting, with the miscast Dotson and overblown Krichevsky most unfortunate. Still, it’s free. Lawn chairs and/or blankets are encouraged.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Madwoman of Chaillot” and “Thieves’ Carnival,” Dr. Paul Carlson Memorial Park, Motor Avenue and Braddock Drive, Culver City. “Madwoman”: 2 p.m. Sundays (July 23-30), 2 p.m. Saturdays (Aug. 6-19). Ends Aug. 19. “Thieves”: 2 p.m. Saturdays, (July 22-29), 2 p.m. Sundays (Aug. 7-20) Ends Aug. 20. Free. (310) 712-5482 or www.ccpt.org. Running time: 2 hours

*

Lying, scheming to no good end

Sometimes bad plays happen to good theater companies. Case in point: the preposterously banal -- and exhausting -- world premiere of John Bunzel’s “Complexity,” a Circus Theatricals production at the Hayworth.

Cathy (Jennifer de Castroverde) is a modern-day Iago, a manipulative executive secretary who gets a job with high-powered Tom (Jack Stehlin, who also directs) to steal him from both his wife, Jill (Shannon Holt), and mistress (Cindy Marinangel).

Tom and Jill’s marriage has been profoundly damaged by the accidental death of their son, making them ripe for Cathy’s psychic mayhem. On Kitty Rose’s functional unit set, the characters lie and scheme themselves into pure misery.

There’s an interesting idea here about how pain weakens people’s ability to be truthful to themselves and those they love. But Bunzel is nowhere close to creating characters with enough depth and specificity to make us care -- their shrill hysterics make daytime soap look like Chekhov.

“Complexity” supposedly takes place in the higher echelons of contemporary New York, yet Bunzel’s characters don’t talk, think or even dress like successful Manhattanites.

Stehlin seems to be going for a kind of absurdist tragicomedy; the result is merely ludicrous. Holt tries valiantly to convince us she’s acting in something worth her talent, but only Neil Vipond, as Jill’s father, actually plays his scenes with something resembling emotional grounding. Most of the time his response to the proceedings was a look of sad horror. I understand completely.

-- Charlotte Stoudt

“Complexity” Circus Theatricals at the Hayworth, 2511 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. Call for schedule. Ends Aug. 10. $20. Contact: (310) 836-7923. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.