‘City Kid’ delivers a rush of rhythm

A hard-driving, high-amplitude morality tale about at-risk youths grappling with drugs, turf wars, poverty and the rite of passage to adulthood, “City Kid, The Musical” makes a memorable rhythmic splash as a street dancing extravaganza.

Conceived more than a decade ago by lyricist/book writer Adrienne Anderson and director Steve Tomkins, the show is sung to a highly danceable hip hop/pop/salsa/rap score by Peter Bunetta and Rick Chudacoff, performed by a tight six-piece band.

For this updated version, the producers enlisted hip-hop choreographer Bradley Rapier, who works miracles honing his hardworking 20-member ensemble into a precision-movement engine. In the process, a somewhat formulaic story is elevated into an exhilarating rush (the first opportunity to catch our breath comes with a solo ballad a half-hour into the show). An expertly balanced sound mix by Eric Snodgrass ensures audibility of every note and syllable.

Pitching to a universal common denominator, the story revolves around serviceable but largely generic characters: a naive youth named Jimmy (John Keefe), who longs to fit in with the “cool” City Kid gang culture, and local songbird Anna (Arielle Paul) who dreams of a better life. Their antagonists are vividly brought to life by charismatic Thomas Hobson as the local alpha dog, Slick, and smoldering Marliss Amiea as his would-be queen.

Sobering life lessons ensue, heightened by selective omission of real-world elements (parents, for example). Anderson’s moralizing is a bit too tidy -- the death of an innocent bystander is blunted by a labored argument of partial complicity, and the hero’s eventual discovery of a social conscience seems like wishful thinking rather than a credible outcome of his experience. The show’s message about personal responsibility might be a tough sell to today’s cynical youth, but its musical hooks and dazzling physicality are more than sufficient to keep us riveted.

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Philip Brandes

“City Kid, The Musical,” Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 25. $28-$34. (323) 960-7863 or www.citykidthemusical.com. Running time: 2 hours

Life, death choices in ‘Committee’

Playwright Mark St. Germain revisits a familiar topic in “The God Committee,” now at Actors Co-op’s Crossley Theatre. Set in a hospital board room, the play revolves around a select hospital committee that meets to determine which patients will receive the donor organs that could save their lives.

That premise has fueled many dramas, most recently the cable episodic “Heartland.” But Germain’s play is to organ donation what “Twelve Angry Men” is to courtroom dramas. The subject matter may be overly familiar, but one has to admire the sheer craft with which it is executed.

Director Ron Orbach, who acted in the original production, shows an intimate connection to his material in this crackling staging, which features the splendid production elements typical of Actors Co-op.

The action takes place on St. Patrick’s Day, and the raucous sounds of a passing street parade are an ironic counterpoint to the life-and-death discussions raging inside. Back from sick leave, beloved committee chairman Dr. Jack Klee (Mark Kinsey Stephenson) soon butts heads with his regular antagonist Dr. Alex Gorman (James Runcorn), a cold rationalist who seems indifferent to human considerations. A heart is being rushed to the hospital, but when its intended recipient dies on the table during prep, the committee must make a frantic last-minute decision. That one of the recipients comes with a covert offer of a $50-million gift further complicates the situation.

Crises mount like an interstate pileup, but Germain keeps his busy plot from careening out of control. The able cast includes Teresa Bisson, Catie LeOrisa, Rocky Bonifield and John Cirigliano, all noteworthy. Joshua Olson is particularly poignant as a paraplegic social worker whose constant wisecracks are a hedge against his own loneliness and isolation.

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“The God Committee,” Crossley Theatre, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. $30. (323) 462-8460. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

‘Wreck’ a mutant take on ‘Tempest’

It takes a brave or perhaps foolhardy dramatist to name his play “The Wreck of the Unfathomable.” Christopher Kelley’s free adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” has the dubious honor of living up to its title, though an admirably dedicated cast helps make this endeavor intermittently endurable.

Working on a mostly bare stage, the actors go through the motions of the Bard’s last full-length play -- minus all of the poetry, many of the principal characters and most of the wit. An elderly wizard named Prior (Carl J. Johnson), who is clearly based on Prospero, rules over a magical island where spirits roam freely. When a shipwreck deposits a group of quarreling people on shore, the wizard must decide whether to defend his sanctuary or to relinquish his powers and rejoin society.

The play unfolds in the early 20th century but the characters speak in a present-day vernacular filled with obscenities. (This incarnation of Prospero is fond of using the F-word.) To revisit “The Tempest” merely to strip it of its eloquence wouldn’t seem like such a sacrilege if the playwright had ideas up his sleeve. But this production collapses and twists the plot for no apparent reason, creating a misshapen and unfunny mutant of the original.

Among the cast, Johnson succeeds nicely at making his irascible wizard morally ambiguous, and Kathleen Mary Carthy as his former love is impressively subtle at suggesting a wasted life. But the real find is Darrett Sanders as the alcoholic ship’s captain, stumbling around the stage with fearless comic bluster. His slurred line readings provide this misconceived play with its most coherent moments.

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David Ng

“The Wreck of the Unfathomable,” Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends Nov. 17. $18. (323) 856-8611 or www.theatreofnote.com. Running time: 2 hours.

Strong cast winds up timely ‘Clock’

It’s understandable why Celebration Theatre chose “The Fastest Clock in the Universe” to open its 25th-anniversary season. Philip Ridley’s baroque 1992 look at narcissism run amok in London’s East End carries obvious relevance for this age-obsessed, sexually ambivalent city.

Set in a dingy Bethnal Green flat, “Fastest” concerns Cougar Glass (the imposing Justin Shilton), first seen in his briefs before a sunlamp (courtesy of lighting designer Tim Swiss). Today is this self-adoring hedonist’s 19th birthday, for the 11th consecutive year.

As bitterly devoted Captain Tock (Christopher Snell) informs us, better avoid the subject, lest Cougar turn into something between Norma Desmond and Godzilla. Besides, tonight is about rapacious Cougar’s latest conquest: 15-year-old Foxtrot Darling (Nick Endres). Cheetah Bee (an unrecognizable Francesca Casale), the hunchbacked landlord, discerns Cougar’s fear of mortality. And when Foxtrot arrives, accompanied by unexpected guest Sherbet Gravel (Tuffet Schmelzle),”Fastest” unravels into pitch-black tragicomedy.

It’s a cracked, ultra-precious script, post-Orton by way of Kenneth Anger. It holds our attention because of the excellent cast. Shilton gives Cougar equal parts charisma and corrosion, and Snell embraces the loopy edges of Tock’s masochism. Endres is an aptly twisted puppy, and both women nearly steal the show.

However, a tonal schism keeps Ridley’s savagely kitschy writing and director Lynn Ann Bernatowicz’s grimly Pinter-esque staging from cohesion. Set designer Casey Hayes’ spare decor is skimpy on the many stuffed birds the text indicates, though Mark Wilson’s twittering soundtrack usually compensates.

More intractable is how the metaphor-laden perversity plays like a distant cousin to “The Birthday Party,” when a blood sibling of “Loot” would be nearer the mark. Celebration patrons can check out “Fastest,” but this is a valiant yet inconclusive L.A. premiere.

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“The Fastest Clock in the Universe,” Celebration Theatre, 7051-B Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. 3 p.m. Sundays. Adult audiences. $24. (323) 957-1884 or www.tix.com. Ends Nov. 18. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

‘Always’ feels like forever in gabfest

Billed as a new play by veteran indie filmmaker Henry Jaglom, “Always -- But Not Forever” at the Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica actually reprises Jaglom’s 1985 film about his failed marriage, starring himself and his ex-wife, Patrice Townsend. In the film, a man (Jaglom) tries to persuade his wife to give their marriage another shot, whereas the play treats the subject from the opposite point of view.

The action centers on soon-to-be-ex-wife Dinah (Tanna Frederick), who is determined to win back her estranged husband, Jack (David O’Donnell), a writer who apparently still adores Dinah but wants an ineffable “more” out of his life.

Dinah lures Jack over for a farewell “divorce dinner” during which he becomes mysteriously ill and must recuperate at her house.

Dinah’s machinations are complicated by the arrival of several weekend guests, yuppies who chatter nonstop in between demanding hugs from one another. Whiny in the extreme, they deserve not hugs but slugs -- a few brisk slaps to snap them out of their narcissistic self-analysis.

Jaglom is famous for his improvised film work -- and indeed, “Always” feels so annoyingly reiterative and off-the-cuff we suspect it was transcribed verbatim during a wine-fueled cast party. There are a few promising comic premises, and it also helps that director Gary Imhoff keeps the action believably spontaneous. But under their offhand casualness, the actors show the strain of a hard sell.

Jaglom references Schopenhauer’s critique of “Tristram Shandy,” which Schopenhauer considered a masterpiece despite its uneventfulness. That citation is not enough to excuse this overlong gab fest or the self-created tribulations that pass for crises among this privileged lot, who should be air-dropped en masse into a Third World inner city to forage for a clue.

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“Always -- But Not Forever,” Edgemar Center for the Arts, 2437 Main St., Santa Monica. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 5:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 9. $20. (310) 392-7327 Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.