Dancing amid delicate ‘Glass’

Thomas Lanier Williams was 25 and still living with his family when, in April 1936, he confessed to his personal journal: “This house frightens me again. I feel trapped -- shut in.” Not quite a decade later, he broke through to Broadway with a play that fairly vibrated with those feelings. By then, he was Tennessee Williams. His play: “The Glass Menagerie.”

An Actors Co-op presentation, directed by Brian Kite, is unusually effective at putting theatergoers inside the mind of each semiautobiographical character and, consequently, inside Williams’ haunted, wildly creative imagination.

Narrating the story, Toby Meuli -- portraying Tom, the author’s surrogate -- is at first skittish. He’s a young writer, still testing his words. Once he warms to his task, he takes us inside an apartment in 1930s St. Louis in which long-out-of-date furnishings are arranged to create as pleasant an environment as possible (set by John Iacovelli, shadowy lighting by Craig Pierce).

The quarters are too small for the personality of Tom’s mother, Amanda. Her manic vivacity may be a defense mechanism, fending off the despair of unmet expectations, but as she tries to correct every perceived flaw, she undermines her children. The quaver in Tawny Mertes’ voice suggests that Tom’s sister, Laura, always second-guesses herself.

This tangle of love, resentment and guilt can be a downer, but Lori Berg mitigates the mood by revealing the motherliness behind Amanda’s overbearing concern, and Kite and his cast coax forth gentle humor where it exists. What’s more, they understand that Williams’ abstracted realism can be more intensely real, actually, than kitchen-sink drama. Tom sometimes hovers at the edge of a scene, reluctant to enter. Other times, the light changes and music is heard, signaling a retreat into his mind. Whoosh. The theatergoer is suddenly in there with him, experiencing what he is.

So we feel the blunder when Tom invites an acquaintance (Stephen Van Dorn) home to meet Laura, setting up the mother of all disappointments, and we sense that no matter how far Tom might roam from then on, home will always be where his heart is.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“The Glass Menagerie,” Actors Co-op, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m Sundays; 2:30 p.m. this Saturday and May 17. Ends June 8. $30. (323) 462-8460. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

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Clever meets crazy in ‘Swing’

Tightly wound originality distinguishes the plays of Rebecca Gilman, and “The Sweetest Swing in Baseball” is no exception. As compact as a New Yorker short story, Gilman’s portrait of a crisis-ridden artist who assumes the persona of Darryl Strawberry quietly transcends its quirks in an assured L.A. premiere by West Coast Ensemble.

We first meet Dana (the terrific CB Spencer) dodging the crowds at her latest show, which is bombing. Between crushing self-doubts and her self-serving art dealers, Dana is primed for meltdown. Right on cue, her boyfriend dumps her, leading to a suicide attempt that lands Dana in a mental hospital.

Here, Dana’s artistic block dissolves through recreational therapy with her fellow inmates. Sociopath Gary (scene-stealing Jerry Lloyd) is a permanent resident after stalking a CNN talking head. Alcoholic Michael (Brian Weir, sweetly unmannered) is a gay man who favors celebrity tell-alls.

With creativity and confidence returning, Dana crashes against the healthcare system. Her insurance provider balks at coverage after 10 days, leaving antidepressants and outpatient purgatory as her only therapeutic options. That is, until Dana and her new allies concoct a scheme to prove her schizophrenic, and she becomes the Straw Man.

Director Ross Kramer fields a light-handed touch that keeps Gilman’s pert dialogue and philosophical fastballs spinning into the house. Set designer Stephen Gifford’s white walls and curtains seamlessly integrate with the adroit contributions of designers Ron Klieg (sound), Derrick McDaniel (lighting) and Zoe Buck (costumes).

Spencer’s endearing turn, at once poignant and hilarious, anchors a strong cast that tosses off dual roles, with Ferrell Marshall and Lilo Grunwald excellent as the avaricious art mavens and contrasting shrinks. If “The Sweetest Swing” faintly resembles a standoff between Ken Kesey and an episode of “The Office,” its players hit it out of the park.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Sweetest Swing in Baseball,” West Coast Ensemble at El Centro Theatre, 804 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends June 8. $20. (323) 906-2500. Running time: 2 hours.

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‘Brain’ wears many hats

Science doesn’t get much more fictionalized than in the silly sci-fi musical “The Brain From Planet X.”

A mutation of such movies as “The Brain From Planet Arous” and “Plan Nine From Outer Space,” the show spins a comic tale of space aliens who choose the 1950s San Fernando Valley as the launching point for their takeover of Earth. Introduced at Los Angeles City College in 2006, the show returns, with some interim tweaking, at the Chance Theater, as an early event in the two-month Festival of New American Musicals.

Much of the fun of David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel’s show, as staged by Kimmel, is its low-tech re-creation of low-tech B movies. Some gags are slap-on-the-forehead obvious, such as the alien spacecraft constructed of taped-together pie tins hanging from a stick. Others are guffaw-inducingly unexpected.

Man-of-many-faces Michael Irish provides Rod Serling-like setup; Mark Rothman, outfitted with a bouffant-size brain, is a Mel Brooks of a space villain who’s saddled with squabbling henchmen Emily Clark (in intergalactic glamazon mode) and Daniel Berlin (how does he sustain that helium voice?). Allison Appleby and Bob Simpson, as unsuspecting Valley householders, imitate such TV moms and pops as the Stones and the Andersons. The cast of 15 is supported by a keyboard-percussion-reeds trio.

The music and lyrics, mostly by Kimmel, are pastiches, at their cleverest when they nod toward shows you’d little suspect (“42nd Street”? “Company,” for goodness sake?). Overall, there’s so much copying going on that audiences can make a virtual trivia game out of identifying the sources.

One could call the show derivative, meaning it as a put-down, but “The Brain” would just take it as a compliment.

-- D.H.M.

“The Brain From Planet X,” the Chance Theater, 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills. 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends June 8. $30. (714) 777-3033. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.