Wilson’s skills free to roam in ‘Fences’

If you see “Fences” at the Odyssey -- and you should -- check your puny postmodern attention span at the door. Part of the late August Wilson’s remarkable dramatic cycle spanning the 20th century African American experience, the play runs over three hours.

But here’s the test of enduring drama. We don’t want it to end. A great humanist as well as dramatist, Wilson always afforded his characters plenty of breathing space. If his plays seem leisurely in pace, it’s time well spent.

Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, “Fences” contains one of Wilson’s most compelling protagonists, the fierce and defiantly unbowed Troy Maxson (deeply affecting Charlie Robinson), once a brilliant baseball player, now a garbage man who struggles to support his family while keeping his personal demons at bay.

And, despite the efforts of Troy’s brain-damaged war vet brother Gabriel (Dig Wayne, in a riveting turn) to chase the “hellhounds” away, demons abound, most prominently the demons of racism that kept Troy from the major leagues. Yet there are homegrown demons as well, namely, Troy’s childhood abuse and abandonment and, now, Troy’s perverse betrayal of his loving wife Rose, played by Elayn J. Taylor in a dazzlingly understated performance that floors us with its emotional truth.

Thomas Brown designed the tellingly shabby set, and Luke Moyer’s showy lighting, which might have seemed obtrusive in another context, works well here. Director Jeffrey Hayden, who co-produced the play with his wife, Eva Marie Saint, and the Odyssey’s Ron Sossi, is a showbiz vet with his roots in the era that spawned Tennessee Williams, a time when larger-than-life characters held sway on the nation’s stages.

Hayden and his wonderful cast, which includes William Stanford Davis, Jonathan T. Floyd, Wynter Daggs and Tjader France, don’t shy away from Wilson’s innate theatricality. Unafraid of histrionic excess, they embrace Wilson’s epic emotions without stinting. The bet pays off, brilliantly.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Fences,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 6. $24-$28. (310) 477-2055. www.odysseytheatre.com. Running time: 3 hours, 20 minutes.

*

Smart coming-out for a hip musical

Given the current gay marriage debate, it is fascinating to recall the Eisenhower era, when embracing a same-gendered person in a bar was a ticket to incarceration. That acute perspective feeds “Play It Cool” at the Celebration. For an original musical, Larry Dean Harris and Mark Winkler’s bebop look at the illegal gay nightclubs of 1950s Hollywood carries ample style and considerable substance.

Kurt Boetcher’s black-on-black set places the audience in Mary’s Hideaway, an underground jazz dive as deadpan hip as its proprietress (the terrific Jessica Sheridan). Mary knows all the angles, which does not stop Lena (golden-voiced Katie Campbell), Mary’s girlfriend, from heeding the advice of Tinseltown climber Eddie (Steven Janji, atop his game) to put her career ahead of her heart.

Into this den of iniquity -- gorgeously lighted by Carol Doehring, elegantly costumed by Marjorie Baer -- comes Kansas neophyte Will (Andrew Pandaleon, a major discovery). The starry-eyed singer goes from coming out (and how) with Eddie to coaching by Mary and mentoring by Henry (the touching Michael Craig Shapiro), a Hideaway fixture with a secret.

Sharon Rosen’s smooth direction offsets still-refining quirks of libretto. Harris could expand the Pirandello aspects, trim some ballast and give Henry more Act 1 involvement, yet the dialogue snaps and pops, evoking Douglas Sirk without undue camp. Winkler’s intelligent lyrics sit easily on contributions by multiple composers, from David Benoit to Phillip Swann, an accomplished, kaleidoscopic songbook.

The wonderful cast inhales the specialized score and Marvin Tunney’s choreography with plush assurance, repeatedly stopping the show, and musical director Louis Durra’s band is splendid. Tart, tuneful and trenchant in unexpected ways, “Play It Cool” generates sizzling heat, and not just for blue-note devotees.

-- David C. Nichols

“Play It Cool,” Celebration Theatre, 7051-B Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends July 16. Mature audiences. $30. (323) 957-1884. Running time: 2 hours.

*

‘Agamemnon’s’ antiwar polemic

Charles L. Mee is a generous playwright. Mee urges readers of his plays, many of which are posted on his website, to freely borrow from his work, as he has freely borrowed from the ancient Greek dramas that have so richly inspired him.

“Agamemnon” -- the first offering in City Garage’s ambitious season of three radically considered Greek classics by Mee -- is a generous play, vaultingly poetic and rich, as was “Big Love,” Mee’s surprisingly humorous tale of forced marriage and mass murder based on Aeschylus’ “The Danaides.” Of course, “Agamemnon” treats the legend of Agamemnon’s homecoming after the Trojan War, and his subsequent murder by his vengeful wife, Clytemnestra. Far grimmer in tone, for obvious reasons, “Agamemnon” poses the salient question: Is it ever possible to overstate the horrors of war?

A bucket of bloody eyeballs later, we conclude that it is. Granted, Homer didn’t cut corners on sanguinary description in “The Iliad.” But Mee’s antiwar polemic, however timely and resonant, occasionally lapses into gratuitous overstatement.

That seems a quibble, in light of Mee’s passion and craft, but it does shatter our empathy at intervals. Not so Frederique Michel’s razor-sharp staging, which is as effectively spare as a Zen sand garden, inspiring our contemplation, if not our serenity. A crack cast fulfills Michel’s vision without a motion to spare. Troy Dunn is a likely Agamemnon, the conquering hero who has angered the gods, while Clytemnestra (Marie-Francoise Theodore) is as scary as she is seductive.

Charles A. Duncombe’s inspired production design features a chorus of “disembodied” human heads -- actually actors whose bodies are cunningly concealed by the set. It’s an uncanny effect echoing recent beheadings in the Middle East, a bitter reminder of how little mankind has changed over the course of the centuries.

-- F.K.F.

“Agamemnon,” City Garage, 1340 1/2 4th St. (alley), Santa Monica. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 5:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends July 23. $20. (310) 319-9939. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.