A haunting tale of a grim partnership

Collaboration is an ambiguous word; it can imply channeling the ego toward a greater group good or ceding one’s morality to a hostile regime. In “The Grey Zone,” now receiving its Los Angeles premiere, author Tim Blake Nelson and the new Because It’s There Theatre ensemble take on one of the grimmest partnerships in history: the Nazis and the Sonderkommandos, Jewish prisoners who cremated the many thousands gassed at Auschwitz. For the burden of burning their compatriots and families, the men received better rations and sleeping quarters. It’s an impossibly horrific situation to fit into a 90-minute play, and Nelson’s effort, made into a feature film in 2001, is inevitably uneven. But at its strongest, which is to say its most dispassionate, “Zone” sketches a universe in which the best human qualities -- hope and charity -- have been twisted into instruments of torture.

Director Brian Weed and his design team use Deaf West Theatre’s cavernous black box space to create a claustrophobic, monochromatic world drained of human feeling. A massive crematorium door dominates the dark, near-bare stage, and the prisoners, their faces made almost indistinguishable by the ashes blackening their shaved heads, seem to cling to identity by a shredding thread. Ian Gregory delivers an affecting performance as a matter-of-fact Sonderkommando, as does Alan Avenel as a self-loathing physician assisting Dr. Mengele. Only Weed’s overuse of Ben Halbrook’s eerie score is heavy-handed. In the end, what haunts is a wordless image: a lone prisoner, gas-masked and rubber-gloved, slowly opening the giant crematorium door, releasing a dark cloud of murdered souls.

-- Charlotte Stoudt

“The Grey Zone” Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 5. $20. (800) 838-3006. Running time: 90 minutes.

*

American dream as a missing prize

Once upon a time there was a gravedigger (Harold Surratt) who looked so much like President Lincoln he decided to make a killing off it. He set himself up as a fairground attraction impersonating the great man watching “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. For a penny, anyone could come to his booth to be Booth: Choose a pistol, take aim, assassinate. Never mind that the man was black, or that he abandoned his wife Lucy (J. Nicole Brooks, riveting) and young son Brazil (Darius Truly) in pursuit of his dream. He was obsessed.

Gorgeously staged by director-designer Nancy Keystone, who turns the Theatre @ Boston Court into a giant absurdist sandbox, Suzan-Lori Parks’ “The America Play” presents three souls tumbling their way across an expanse of black dirt (actually ground-up rubber tires) described as “an exact replica of the Great Hole of History.” Following the trail of the missing gravedigger, mother and son dig up all manner of clues but never seem to find the story they want.

“The America Play” isn’t a narrative but a set of compulsively repeated gestures, minstrelsy outtakes and twisted nursery rhymes. Like Samuel Beckett’s beggars -- really, like the audience -- Parks’ foundering family tries again and again to piece it all together. But Parks suggests the American Dream, particularly for those brought here against their will, is a scavenger hunt with a missing prize, an echo chamber without end. Her vision is a stubborn wondering with strange staying power.

-- C.S.

“The America Play,” The Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 19. $30. (626) 683-6883. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Mortality on mind of Mednick hero

Don’t be too hard on Gary, the failed actor who serves as playwright Murray Mednick’s sounding board in “Out of the Blue” at the Lost Studio. C’mon, he’s faced with his dying mother’s life support system. This fourth installment of Mednick’s “The Gary Plays” sets its Everyschnook hero (a perfectly cast Lee Kissman) musing on mortality in post-Katrina New Orleans.

A helicopter ride and hell’s gates jockey with the hospice where Mama Bean (Tina Preston) and stepfather Daddy O (Hugh Dane) wait on the abstract set by Jeffrey Atherton, Jason Adams and Alicia Hoge. Those familiar with previous entries will recall nonlinear jumps, repeated phrases and existential gestures, and so goes this Padua Playwrights presentation.

If the iconoclastic wordplay remains an acquired taste, director Guy Zimmerman’s idiomatic take savors the flavor. Ann Closs-Farley’s costume designs offer tart comment -- as in Mama Bean’s yeasty fright wig and Daddy O’s post-Stepin Fetchit garb -- and composer Don Preston’s sound and Dan Reed’s lighting are suitably surreal.

The actors manage their absurdist duties with aplomb. Kissman radiates nascent despair as Gary, and Preston’s raucous deadpan and Dane’s curt resonance solidly register. Mark Adair-Rios is a suave angel of death, while Gray Palmer and Mary C. Greening are sardonically pert choristers.

Niamh McCormally as a dead junkie and Andy Hopper as Gary’s late son make strong impressions, though reliance on past themes is one of Mednick’s weaknesses. The emotional stakes and cultural overview are opaque, and witty self-awareness often becomes precocious indulgence. Still, a fifth “Gary Play” is in the works, and though detractors may wish to pull the plug, “Out of the Blue” should satisfy Mednick cultists.

-- David C. Nichols

“Out of the Blue,” Lost Studio, 130 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 4. Adult audiences. $20. (323) 933-6944. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

*

Gripping drama amid prewar days

Topical pull impels “Man.Gov,” presented by Circus Theatricals at the Hayworth Theatre. Shem Bitterman’s thoughtful drama about a senior arms inspector, his antipathetic daughter and the havoc wrought by a celebrity reporter isn’t quite flawless, but it’s gripping.

Loosely drawn from accounts of real-life whistle-blowers, notably weapons inspectors Scott Ritter and the late Dr. David Kelly, “Man.Gov” occurs during the run-up to the Iraq war. It follows Dave G. (Christopher Curry), a career government employee first seen studying weapons reports. Enter disdainful Laura (Britt Napier), Dave’s daughter from his first marriage who, amid shrewd exposition, brings Dad’s attention to the political essays of Graylin James (a vivid Robert Cicchini). Outraged by what he sees as inaccuracies, Dave arranges for a meeting. We don’t witness their conversation until after “Man.Gov” examines its results: a media firestorm, government hearings and Dave’s retrenchment outside of Washington, D.C., with Jean (the heartfelt Stephanie Erb), his supportive second wife.

To describe more would undermine “Man.Gov,” which respects the unknown that we know we don’t know as much it does 20/20 hindsight. Bitterman largely avoids thriller cliches, although Dave’s co-worker Mitch F. (Jordan Lund) and the handling of shadowy Henry K. (the effective Thomas Kopache) initially flirt with convention. The compact narrative could stand more stanzas, with Graylin’s arc incomplete and the climax abrupt -- there may be a two-act play in here.

Still, Bitterman twists his plot with as much character truth as political kerosene. Director Steve Zuckerman, a spare design scheme and a fine cast keep us intrigued. Curry sagely underplays Dave, the willowy Napier is an arresting find and their colleagues are estimable. So is “Man.Gov,” for its service to questions that everyone should be asking.

-- D.C.N.

“Man.Gov,” Circus Theatricals at the Hayworth, 2511 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Ends Nov. 18. Adult audiences. $20. (323) 960-1054 or www.CircusTheatricals.com. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.