Intrepid ‘Attempts’ to push beyond

Imagine an episode of “Without a Trace” co-written by Samuel Beckett and Marshall McLuhan, and the result might look a lot like “Attempts on Her Life,” a cyber-era choreopoem now receiving a messy but committed L.A. premiere by Unknown Theater and the Evidence Room.

Martin Crimp’s play is a throwdown for the most intrepid director -- there are no specified settings or characters, not even assigned speaking roles. Just phrases on a page, arranged in “17 Scenarios for the Theater,” each offering a perspective on an absent woman, named Anne or Anya or Anissa, who may be a terrorist, an actress, a victim of ethnic cleansing or the inspiration for a new car. Or none of the above.

Co-directors Bart DeLorenzo and Chris Covics (who also designed the set) work off a suitably blank canvas: a pure white cyc, a backdrop that hangs from an upstage frame and rolls down across the entire stage surface. A hodgepodge of chairs hang by cables, and the ensemble lassos a few for a brisk series of scenes, among them a pitch meeting, a rock concert and the creepiest car commercial you have ever heard. (“No man ever rapes and kills a woman in the Anny before tipping her body out at a red light along with the contents of the ashtray.”)

This is theater as unapologetic experiment: Some will find “Attempts” pretentious and wearing; others will feel giddy in the presence of a playwright pushing the medium to its edge. All will wish the production were a little tighter and that the actors had more command of the author’s elliptical wordplay. (Although Tom Fitzpatrick and Kathy Bell Denton are quietly compelling as Anne’s bewildered parents.) At its best, Crimp’s work conjures that stubborn human quality resistant to any authority, to all containment. Everyone -- Hollywood, her family, the military-industrial complex -- tries to capture the essence of Anne. Yet she remains, to borrow from Virginia Woolf, a “wedge of darkness,” a self that leaves evidence but is never caught.

With “Attempts,” Unknown Theater and Evidence Room affirm their reputations as mad scientists willing to blow up their lab in pursuit of something new and vital. If this production is half debris, half promise, it’s a cost-benefit ratio that’ll do until the real thing comes along.

--

“Attempts on Her Life,” Unknown Theater, 1110 N. Seward St., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays. $18-$24. Ends Dec. 15. (323) 466-7781 or www.unknowntheater.com. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

‘Bald Soprano’ can be so surreal

Eugene Ionesco called his absurdist farce “The Bald Soprano” an “anti-play” -- a succinct and accurate description for a comedy that breaks all the rules in the book and then gleefully incinerates the tome. Still provocative after more than 50 years, this theatrical Molotov receives a frequently hilarious if rather over-acted revival from City Garage in Santa Monica.

To summarize the anti-story: Mrs. Smith (David E. Frank) is prattling on about grocery shopping to her loutish husband, Mr. Smith (Jeff Atik), when a second couple, the Martins (Cynthia Mance and Bo Roberts), arrive at the door. It turns out Mr. and Mrs. Martin have never met before, even though they live together. Matters get weirder when a fireman (Maximiliano Molina) stops by to regale a few nonsensical stories. The play concludes with the main characters shouting gibberish at each other.

The actors display an infectious enthusiasm, but they tend to overstate the silliness of their lines as if they were unsure whether Ionesco’s humor is coming across. The performance that best channels the play’s surrealist vibe is Frank’s cross-dressing turn as Mrs. Smith. His robotic delivery and mildly deranged facial expressions seem a perfect match for Ionesco. The gender twist proves to be an inspired bit of non sequitur casting in a play filled with verbal non sequiturs.

Adapting Ionesco for the English-language stage usually requires taking numerous liberties with the play. This production uses a translation by Donald M. Allen that moves the action from England to France and sprinkles bits of francais throughout. The direction by Frederique Michel further annotates the text with a hilarious set of bodily paroxysms. Rather than compromise the play, these alterations only enhance its strange, anarchic power.

--

“The Bald Soprano,” City Garage, 1340 1/2 4th St. Alley, Santa Monica. 8 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays; 5:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 16. $20. (310) 319-9939 or www.citygarage.org. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Polished cycle of Noel Coward

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it” is a maxim the Antaeus Company takes to heart when it comes to spotlighting the depth and versatility of its classically trained talent pool. For its first full staging since relocating to a temporary home at NoHo’s Deaf West Theatre, Antaeus takes on the entire cycle of short plays in Noel Coward’s “Tonight at 8:30” collection.

Unlike the single three-piece subsets in which the works are typically revived, this undertaking spans two evenings, each composed of four playlets. Double-casting each set adds to the logistical complexity -- more than 40 actors appear in the cycle, most in multiple roles.

Coward conceived the entire cycle as a star showcase for himself and his stage partner Gertrude Lawrence, but the emphasis here is on ensemble uniformity (accents, manners and sensibility are impeccable). While individual character shadings will inevitably vary between the two casts, the reviewed Part II performance demonstrated insightful handling of overall tone, pacing and emotional impact by the respective directors (Stefan Novinski, Robert Goldsby, Stephanie Shroyer and Brendon Fox), allowing each segment to stand on the merits of its script.

The selections in Part II, subtitled “Come the Wild,” fit together particularly well, although purists will have to accept that the fixed bill violates Coward’s original conceit (in which each evening’s lineup of three plays was randomly selected to provide a mix of farce, music and drama).

Where Part I focuses primarily on the breezy aristocratic world with which Coward is most commonly associated, three episodes in Part II depict working-class struggles in 1930s Britain. Roughly parallel in construction with the other bill, Part II opens with a behind-the-scenes showbiz satire, “Red Peppers,” in which a wittily bickering song-and-dance team of musical hall performers (John Prosky, Rhonda Aldrich) run afoul of their seedy touring venue.

“Fumed Oak” is a nominal comedy that darkens when a milquetoast (Josh Clark) turns the tables on his greedy, manipulative family.

The dramatic anchor is “Still Life,” a hauntingly sympathetic series of snapshot scenes depicting the doomed adulterous affair between a doctor (Prosky) and a housewife (Alicia Woolerton) who meet in a train station (Coward later expanded the piece into the film “Brief Encounter”).

The song-ridden “Family Album” is a slight bit of fluff about an affluent clan anticipating sizable inheritances from its recently deceased, mean-spirited patriarch, but it sports a pitch-perfect turn by Philip Proctor as the hard-of-hearing butler who proves (much like this entire no-frills production) that real class has nothing to do with wealth.

--

“Tonight at 8:30 Part II - Come the Wild,” Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Ends Dec. 23; see website for schedule. $30-$40 ($50 for Parts I & II). (866) 811-4111 or www.antaeus.org. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.

‘BFG’ is a nimble romp of a tale

“Whizzpopping” -- the jet-propelled, rude raspberry effect of a bubbly beverage called “frobscottle” -- steals the show in David Wood’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s wordplay romp, “The BFG (Big Friendly Giant),” at South Coast Repertory.

Only the sight of the BFG’s huge puppet head, looming over the stage, elicits as much vocal audience approval during this playful staging of Dahl’s tall tale about a little girl and a dream-catching gentle giant.

A professional adult cast, directed by Anne Justine D’Zmura, plays multiple roles in this Theatre for Young Audiences production, as birthday girl Sophie (Kate James) and her friends act out Dahl’s story. At first, the “whizzpopping” BFG is human-sized, played by Preston Maybank, and Sophie is represented by a doll manipulated by James, an engaging actress, though a limited puppeteer.

Grotesque masks give scary life -- intense for preschoolers -- to BFG’s grisly peers, Childchewer (Tolsky), Fleshlumpeater (Louis Lotorto), Bloodbottler (Larry Bates), Gizzardgulper (Jennifer Parsons), Meatdripper (Dawn-Lyen Gardner) and Bonecruncher (David DeSantos).

James takes the doll’s place and the BFG is personified by an enormous head and hands when the plot is resolved at Buckingham Palace by the warm, unflappable Queen (Amy Tolsky).

Puppet designer Aaron Cromie, who also contributes nifty shadow puppetry, is a big plus for the show. Sound and light designers Tom Cavnar and Christina L. Munich, respectively, contribute to the fun, and Nephelie Andonyadis’ clean sets and Angela Balogh Calin’s colorful costumes create whimsical balance.

--

“The BFG (Big Friendly Giant),” South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 7 p.m. today, 2, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 4:30 p.m. Sunday; ends Sun. $16 to $27. (714) 708- 5555, www.scr.org. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.