Chilling ethics of survival

Profound moral dilemmas underscore George Tabori’s provocative plays, for all their lancing purpose. Few conundrums have more difficult contours than those posed by “The Cannibals” at the Edison Theatre in Long Beach. Tabori’s stark treatise on the ethics of survival amid the insanity of Auschwitz receives an impressive staging by California Repertory Company.

Entering designer Shing Khor’s whitewashed set, we settle on either side of a narrow area dominated by a table laden with concentration camp uniforms in plastic cubes. Before and around us, the actors warm up while we try to ignore the bunks behind and the barbed wire overhead.

As Ryan Brodkin’s festive preshow sound peals, the actors exit, then reenter wearing period clothes that they exchange for the prison garb designed by Katharine Tarkulich. Playing the offspring of inmates, they recount an act of starving desperation, the post-Brechtian maneuvers cued by two survivors. At pivotal moments, Marie Yokoyama’s lighting goes coldly penetrating, and the players drop character for third-person comment, the heart of Tabori’s embodied memory theory.

That this fascinates and unnerves is a testament to Tabori, an artist of unwavering integrity and macabre wit, and director Anne Justine D’Zmura, whose admirable ensemble and designers give the stylized horror its chilling due. As the survivors, Josh Nathan and Karen Kalensky overstress the Borscht Belt cadences, but their concentration is imposing, and Beth Froelich invests the voice of reason with formidable authority. Their colleagues are uniformly committed, with Deborah Taylor’s climactic SS officer unbearably saturnine.

Sometimes the academic tactics permit as much detachment as visceral reaction, and this play will never be everybody’s cup of soup. Yet the pertinence of “The Cannibals” is acute. It grabs us despite a sterile aftertaste.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Cannibals,” Edison Theatre, 213 E. Broadway, Long Beach. 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Oct. 7 only. Ends Oct. 7. $20. (562) 985-5526 or www.calrep.org. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

*

Enjoyable climes of ‘Tonight at 11!’

“Great news is born out of great conflict.” This and other knowing truisms interrupt the smooth transmission of “Tonight at 11!” at the Falcon Theatre. Though this adroitly appointed insider’s look at TV news from veteran weathercaster Fritz Coleman only scratches the surface of its subject, it makes its points and lands its laughs.

Under Richard Kline’s shrewd direction, Coleman, a KNBC-TV fixture for more than two decades, guides us around fictional Channel 8 with casual ease and surprising irreverence. Moving confidently about designer Sherry Santillano’s abstract set -- network logos over a plasma screen facing upstage -- Coleman shares the mind-set behind commercial programming terminology and the trials of keeping professional distance in the face of something like Hurricane Katrina.

Jeremy Pivnick’s lighting expertly supports the shifting moods, and at times “Tonight at 11!” offers a mordantly funny attack on our couch-potato culture. True, “Network” it isn’t. Coleman hardly names names, or exposes too much beneath his wry, James Stewart-meets-Spalding Gray personality. After all, he still has to go to work with these people immediately after this show.

The use of interstitial voice-overs in Craig Roberts and Matt Sigman’s sound design is a bright idea that inadvertently betrays the limits of the concept. In the final quarter, when the wonderful Ivonne Coll voices a barricaded storekeeper at the end of her tether, “Tonight at 11!” screams for a wider viewfinder. Still, what it explores is worthy and enjoyable, thanks to its affable headliner, a natural raconteur whose Southland fan base should keep the Falcon’s box office on high alert.

-- D.C.N.

“Tonight at 11!” Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank. 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct. 1. (818) 955-8101. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

*

Lewis in fearless turn as Othello

Damian D. Lewis, a magnetic Oberon in the Lost Studio’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” earlier this summer, now makes a powerful claim on the title role in the company’s faithful production of “Othello.”

As Shakespeare’s hapless Moor who loved not wisely but too well, Lewis embodies with nuance and arresting strength a war hero’s harrowing slide from sunny self-satisfaction to murderous rage.

A slight hand tremor is Lewis’ first, subtle indication of the lion-like Othello’s inner torment as insinuations of his new wife’s infidelity take root; his portrayal of a bruising epileptic collapse is a shocking harbinger of the darkness to come.

It’s a fearless performance and thankfully, Lewis is well matched by Carrie-Ann Pishnak in a delicately shaded performance as unlucky Desdemona. The pair have palpable, tension-heightening chemistry.

Patrick Curran’s wrong place-wrong time Cassio and Ben Baker’s foolish foil Roderigo are strong, well-spoken assets too.

Alas, the same can’t be said for Justin Wheeler’s thinly layered Iago. Wheeler’s understated approach might work if a hint of febrile menace were perceptible. But instead, too often, boyish sullenness is nearer to the mark, and Iago’s dominance, even over his own ill-used wife (a sturdy Gina Torrecilla), strains credulity.

Director Justin Eick, whose spirited staging is set against wood-paneled walls inspired by Shakespeare’s Blackfriar Theatre, should seek more from his Iago.

The cast’s lush Elizabethan-era costumes were designed by Tina Eick and Debbie Gluck. Lights, uncredited, add notable depth.

-- Lynne Heffley

“Othello,” Lost Studio, 130 S. La Brea Ave., L.A. 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; ends Sat. $15. (323) 933-6944. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

*

A baby boomer’s tricky stage of life

For aging baby boomers, “the ‘60s” is a phrase that has assumed an edgy and bittersweet dual meaning. To those who came of age in the notorious decade, it remains a halcyon time forever linked to youth, idealism, protest and seemingly limitless possibilities. But now that Paul McCartney is old enough to answer the questions he once posed in “When I’m Sixty-Four,” the ‘60s also represent a stage of life in which conversations increasingly turn from philosophy and art to ailments and mortality.

Trish Soodik’s “The 60s,” developed and produced by Pacific Resident Theatre, grapples with both senses of its title. Some fine performances show potential in this still-embryonic script, though considerable work is needed to broaden its appeal beyond its obvious demographic.

Versatile Steve Vinovich anchors the piece as Norman, a retired pharmacist who once played drums in a rock band and wonders aloud during an opening jog in the park, “When did I become the old guy?”

An aging Peter Pan is not a pretty sight, and Norman’s increasingly desperate clinging to youth has embarrassing consequences for everyone around him as he keeps hitting on girls young enough to be his granddaughter.

He rejects the sage cautions of his conscience, who appears in the guise of his ex-wife, Grace (Mariette Hartley -- still attractive, making Norman’s judgment all the more suspect).

While most of Norman’s hormonal targets are sketch comedy stereotypes, a more substantial foil is Audrey (Dana Dewes), a troubled young woman he befriends at a dance club. Yet even her history is written with just enough generic back-story (an unseen husband who cheats on her, an unspecified job she loses) to serve the plot; any depth and shading are very much to Dewes’ credit.

Kevin Rahm and Jerry Sroka have less success, respectively, as Norman’s estranged son and the family friend who’s now courting Grace. On the other hand, William Lithgow delivers a show-stealing turn as a pharmacy customer hopelessly addicted to antidepressants (“Who cares? I’ll be dead in 10 years!”).

When circumstances force a reluctant Norman to assume adult responsibilities for the family he abandoned, there’s a predictable but often touching movement toward reconciliation and acceptance, buoyed by Hartley’s portrayal of a life companion who understands her mate better than he knows himself.

Still, much of this comes across as therapy for Soodik and her director, Paul Linke. Substantial script doctoring is needed to rescue scenes that don’t so much end as run out of steam, and make the material more relevant to those who lack the context to identify with it.

-- Philip Brandes

“The 60s,” Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 19. $20-25. (310) 822-8392. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.