Coming up, better get this party started

The downfall of Thebes gets a West Hollywood face-lift in “The Bacchae” at Celebration Theatre. Allain Rochel’s homoerotic take on the Euripides classic won’t be for everyone, but there’s noteworthy point within the grim irreverence.

Upon entering the venue, which set designer Kurt Boetcher covers with graffiti and foliage, audiences may wonder if they’ve stumbled into a rave. That is the intent, from the first metallic slash over the sound system to the last flash-lighted incantation.

Dionysus (the riveting Michael A. Shepperd) returns to Thebes, where Zeus fathered him by the mortal Semele. King Pentheus (Bob Simpson, superb) bans Dionysian hedonism, ignoring his feelings for faithful Quintus (the affecting Michael Tauzin) and the advice of Tireseas (ribald Bobby Reed).

Eventually, Pentheus relents and joins the Bacchae on Mt. Cithaeron. Here, Dionysus avenges his mother’s death and the insult to his divinity by way of the demented Thebans, with Pentheus’ grandfather Cadmus (Daryl Keith Roach) leading the horrific charge.

At times, the cautionary adaptation risks overreach. Yet its hieratic sex club ethos has bite, and director Michael Matthews and his remarkable forces fuse various theatrical techniques together with arresting results. The entrance of Dionysus from within a lifted velvet floor cloth, looking like a libidinous genie, is the first of several coups, and choreographer Marvin L.B. Tunney makes the climactic revelry both witty and sinister.

Marjorie Baer’s costumes, Tim Swiss’ lighting, Cricket Myers’ sound and Ryan Poulson’s original music are all lean and evocative. Colbert Alembert, Todd Kubrak, Mario Simone, Ryan Spahn and Michael Taylor Gray make a seamless title chorus. Despite insufficient gore at the denouement and a shaky wartime analogy, these Greeks get under your skin.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Bacchae,” Celebration Theatre, 7051B Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Feb. 11. $20. (323) 957-1884. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

They’d like this chance to explain

Hecklers, this one’s for you. Writer-performer Kristin Stone and director Lee Michael Cohn have created an interactive celebrity-impersonator cabaret where the infamous and the oddball -- from IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands to Tupperware maven Brownie Wise -- have a go at telling their side of the story.

This not-so-upright citizens brigade purports to ask you to rule on their life choices, but the evening’s main event is ultimately the tension between each actor’s ability to stay in character in the face of the audience’s most ferocious ad-libs.

First prize goes to Mary MacDonald, whose unrepentant, chain-smoking Marge Schott -- former owner of the Cincinnati Reds and not exactly an NAACP poster child -- owns the house with her bullet-proof persona.

The roster of performers changes each Sunday, and of course you take your chances with the IQ of fellow audience members. Loudmouths will have a field day; theatergoers in search of more scripted, subtle material may find their attention drifting.

Cheap, scattershot and best seen after a couple of martinis. And I mean that as a compliment.

-- Charlotte Stoudt

“Inside Private Lives,” Theatre East at the Lex, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood. 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Dark Feb 25. Ends March 30. $15. (323) 960-7792. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Tammy Faye has her own gospel

“I really do want to share my good news with everyone,” says country songbird Tammy Faye Starlite, hawking her new CD on radio station KKOK after a stint in rehab, a sixth failed marriage and worse. After a pause, ever-beaming Tammy adds, “Even the Jews.”

Not that Tammy Faye is anti-Semitic. “Christians aren’t better,” she stresses, between catatonic breaks, “only forgiven.” That her own songs run toward such items as “Moonshiner’s Daughter” (one of the few printable titles) bespeaks the point of “Tammy Faye Starlite’s Born Again Again!” at the Renberg Theatre. T. Debra Lang’s goof on Bible Belt hypocrisy aims for places that would give Pat Robertson a stroke.

Swerving between confessional interviews with DJ Gareth Clover (Jeff Ward) and wailing for Jesus, backed up by guitarist Jim Rob Gandy (Keith Hartel), her ex-gay ex-husband, Tammy Faye is nothing if not loquacious and sweetly loco. Writer-performer Lang is an adroit comedian and singer. Her country music proselytizer, equal parts Deana Carter, Courtney Love and OxyContin, is a total characterization. It is therefore puzzling that this cult favorite, directed by Michael Schiralli, elicits less than campy hilarity. The satire -- more cabaret caustic than theatrically scabrous -- wears thin by the halfway mark.

-- D.C.N.

“Tammy Faye Starlite’s Born Again Again!,” Renberg Theatre, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. this Sunday. Ends Jan. 27. $20. (323) 860-7300 or www.lagaycenter.org/ boxoffice. Running time: 1 hour.