‘Small’ events build up

“Oedipus Rex” is a tragedy that won’t stop reverberating. A play about a king’s shocking discovery of his own identity, it’s also a breathless contest between fate and free will, a profound meditation on the limits of human vision and a courageous tale of heroic responsibility in the face of shameful darkness.

In Craig Lucas’ enormously ambitious (and, yes, slightly unwieldy) “Small Tragedy,” now making its L.A. debut courtesy of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, a group of semi-professional actors are rehearsing Sophocles’ masterpiece in Cambridge, Mass., and experiencing firsthand the pity and terror of their characters’ journeys, which alarmingly begin to parallel their own.

A not-so-lighthearted romance ignites within the company between Jocasta and Oedipus: Jen (Deidrie Henry), an actress trying to resume her career after a devastatingly exploitative relationship, finds herself powerfully drawn to Hakija (Steve Cell), a Bosnian economics student turned thespian who’d rather forget his wartime past, no matter the troubling Sophoclean lesson before him.

Nathaniel (Bill Brochtrup), the control-freak director trying to regain his professional confidence after much personal strife, and his HIV-positive actress wife, Paola (Hollace Starr), struggle to keep the production on track, but it’s not so easy given the harrowing questions of morality and mortality that keep being raised among a group not particularly well equipped to deal with them.

Lucas has crafted an exceedingly complex work that mixes cunningly observed backstage chitchat with pointed social and political commentary, carried by a plot with as many ironic twists as any potboiler from the ancient world.

“Small Tragedy” is no small theatrical challenge, and John Perrin Flynn’s minimalist staging at times seems overwhelmed. The basic outline comes through clearly enough, but the drama’s tricky rhythms often seem a beat or two off. Like the performers within the play, Flynn’s cast could use another few weeks to settle into their parts. The undertaking is commendable, but the result never attains a cathartic intensity.

-- Charles McNulty

“Small Tragedy,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 1. $22.50 and $25. (310) 477-2055 or www.odysseytheatre.com. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

A marriage plunge in ‘Swimming’

Repeatedly going against expectations, playwright Steve Totland infuses his drama “Swimming,” now in its world premiere at the Road Theatre, with layer upon layer of nasty surprises. Like peeling a shiny red apple with a rotten core, the play begins with a portrayal of an ostensibly stable marriage, then gradually exposes the devastating cycle of victimization and betrayal beneath the pretty exterior.

Denise (Shana Gagnon) and David (Shaun O’Hagan) are the deceptively happy couple in question. David is a teacher some 12 years older than Denise, his sexually playful wife of 10 years. Oh, vague allusions are made that David has recently lost his teaching job. For now, that’s just background to this apparently halcyon union.

Initially, director Meryl Friedman keeps the interactions between David and Denise so playfully shallow we feel as if we’ve wandered into a superficial domestic comedy. That, we soon realize, is purely intentional. The couple’s carefully contrived masks will soon slip.

As if to underscore David and Denise’s mounting misery, Totland introduces Mark (Chet Grissom), a successful pediatrician who has been David’s best friend since childhood, and Alice (Heather Sher), the hospital administrator with whom Mark lives. Ironically, the blissfully happy Mark and Alice are not even married. That’s intentional too. Totland’s scathing take on marriage could break engagements.

The action is set in rural Kansas, but again, Totland goes against expectations, refreshingly so, with characters as bright and articulate as any urban aesthete. Not that Totland’s play is perfect. In fact, one story point is a downright cheat. That’s forgivable, especially in light of Friedman’s perceptive staging. With unflinching truthfulness, Friedman and her terrific cast reveal the drama’s heart, in all its unanticipated ugliness.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Swimming,” the Road Theatre, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 24. $25. (866) 811-4111. www.roadtheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Get-your-’Goat’ electioneering

It’s understandable why Pacific Resident Theatre would mount “Hogan’s Goat.” William Alfred’s verse-drama of political ambition amid the Irish community of Brooklyn in 1890 has juicy roles for a variety of types, florid language that echoes O’Neill, and a plot that unearths multiple secrets in the course of a cutthroat mayoral campaign.

The narrative, in which immigrant Matt Stanton (Kevin Quinn) takes on corrupt incumbent Ned Quinn (Orson Bean), only to destroy himself and his secret wife, Kathleen (Kelly Miller), in the process, speaks to the cynical present. And this valiantly uneven revival directed by Elina de Santos has its potent moments. De Santos stages the piece in agreeably symbolist fashion. The decor -- Stephanie Kerley-Schwartz’s wood-and-bunting set, Rudy Dillon’s lush costumes, Jonathan LaCour’s footlights and Kevin Rahm’s sound design -- upholds the company standard of resourceful evocation.

However, “Hogan’s Goat,” which premiered off-Broadway in 1965, is both stylized and naturalistic, layering in exposition by the scene and swimming in Gaelic flavor. Though the yeoman cast boasts some standout supporting work, particularly Alley Mills’ embittered Jo Finn, Kristina Harrison’s pivotal Bessie Legg and Michael Tulin’s staunch Father Coyne, dialects vary at the expense of tone and intelligibility, and the dutifully executed business thwarts undiluted involvement.

Quinn’s driven Matt delivers his speeches with intensity; the character’s randy charisma eludes him. As Kathleen, the role that launched Faye Dunaway, the elegant Miller looks exactly right yet sounds anachronistic, though she nails the climax. Bean gets Ned Quinn’s wicked humor, but his twinkle is hardly menacing, and so forth.

The erratic blend of irony and melodrama thus lets tension seep out from the script’s exposed seams. Though devotees may demur, this “Goat” lacks consistent bite.

-- David C. Nichols

“Hogan’s Goat,” Pacific Resident Theatre, 705 1/2 Venice Blvd, Venice. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 4. $16 to $23. (310) 822-8392. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Live ‘Feed’ from the near future

Prospective parents, duck and cover. First came P.D. James’ “Children of Men”; now there’s the futuristic courtroom drama “Feed,” produced by Open at the Top at NoHo Arts Center. Jim Lunsford’s entertaining if on-the-nose problem play imagines a near-future ecological disaster that has led to a radical solution: Humans are bar-coded and sterilized at birth, all procreation government-regulated. The old saw that people should have to apply for a license to have children has become a matter of homeland security.

On Craig Siebels’ elegant, two-tiered set, the State, represented by Keller (a deliciously snarky Paul Denniston), seeks to prosecute Sid (Andrea Lockhart), who has had a back-alley operation to restore her fertility and has given birth to an illicit daughter. Sid’s only hope is Truman (Robert W. Arbogast), a maverick public defender with a supposed drinking problem (although as played by Arbogast, Truman’s sole destructive habit seems to be an excessive use of styling gel).

Will Sid’s primal connection to her child win out, or is her fanatical desire to be a parent an expression of the very selfishness that threatens humankind’s survival?

Clearly we are meant to find Sid’s dilemma heart-wrenching, but the play’s far more compelling conflict is in the antagonistic, eroticized relationship between the two lawyers. Under James J. Mellon’s fluid direction, Lunsford’s strongest writing shows up in the men’s ambiguous encounters, less so in the playwright’s attempts to explicate “Feed’s” bold but unwieldy central premise. That’s the problem with dystopias: They tend to bury their most interesting dramatic impulses under the weight of moral anguish. Less righteousness, more relativity would help -- even if it’s the end of the world as we know it.

-- Charlotte Stoudt

“Feed,” NoHo Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 11. $25. Contact: (818) 508-7101. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

A Walken on the wild side

The iconic aspects of that tireless actor Christopher Walken have been comedy fodder for a while now (often by Walken himself). In “All About Walken,” creator-director Patrick O’Sullivan devotes an hour to the idiosyncratic Oscar winner. Hollywood hipsters and Walken stalkers may turn this combo of sendup and homage into a cult item.

From the opening, with Michael Bayouth applying pause-laden phrasing to Nancy Sinatra’s greatest hit, it’s an outre tag-team relay of snarls and outbursts, strange moves and stranger hair. Much of the show tweaks career highlights, as when “True Romance” and “Pulp Fiction” fast-forward between each other, or the scary Oscar orchestra interrupts his “Deer Hunter” acceptance speech. A riff on “Annie Hall” finds Lily Holleman stretching vowels and popping eyes as psychotic Duane, while Kenzo Lee goofs on Walken’s dancing with abandon. Amy Kelly depicts him as dubious commercial spokesman, and an audience participation segment places Walken in various movies -- “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Wizard of Oz” at the reviewed performance.

The players, who include Tara Price, Brennan Vetter, Troy Vincent and O’Sullivan, are very talented, yet their takes on Walken’s tics and tactics tend toward surface details, in net effect outstripped by the other impersonations, particularly when such luminaries as Jim Carrey, Nicolas Cage and Owen Wilson audition to be Walken.

A noteworthy notion, “All About Walken” is more sketch-comedy pitch session than realized piece, and its in-joke ridden conceit carries scant theatrical point beyond on-the-nose showcase for eight wacky actors.

-- D.C.N.

“All About Walken,” Paul G. Gleason Theater, 6520 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Mondays. Ends March 12. $15. (310) 663-4050. Running time: 1 hour.