THEATER BEAT

There’s a kind of bravura to the jaw-dropping display that is “Gothmas” at the Eclectic Company Theatre. In its melange of garage show, underground rave and 99-seat spectacular, this genre-coagulating account of a gay, a goth, a bi and those who love them to death is indisputably unlike anything else out there.

Co-written by Kerr Seth Lordygan and Laura Lee Bahr (who play the principal roles), “Gothmas” revels in weirdness from its self-descriptive opener, “Nothing,” as suicidal Helena (Bahr) sullenly explains her reasons for checking out early.

But closeted Garth (Lordygan), her best friend, saves Helena’s life and invites her to move in. This vaguely thrills Mabel (Taylor Ashbrook), Garth’s deep-in-denial mother -- until his coming out lands her in the hospital. Enter Joe (Kadyr Gutierrez), a switch-hitting eyeful who seduces both friends into a “Design for Living” arrangement. This reaches a violently campy end as Act 1 closes, and everything spins out of control.

Imagine “Bat Boy” spliced onto a William Castle movie infiltrated by Marilyn Manson and Tim Burton via a vortex to the Factory, and you still aren’t ready. Given the deliberate excesses, there’s remarkable invention to director Justin T. Bowler’s execution. Set designer Marco De Leon skillfully evokes multiple locales, aided by Rebecca Bonebrake’s yeasty lighting, the instant identification of Lori Meeker’s costumes and some particularly witty projections.

The entire cast, flailing gamely through Joel Rieck’s choreography, is vocally variable yet uniformly determined, with narrators Sandra Purporo and Levi Packer perhaps most energetic at selling musical director George “Drew” DeRieux’s guitar-driven tunes. These range from inchoate to agreeable, but the predominant drawback is Lordygan and Behr’s libretto. Hovering choppily between parody and sincerity, the overstuffed book is as club-show rudimentary as the lyrics are laborious, at best.

“Gothmas” is certainly unique. A zealous cult following seems likely. Any future hopes beyond that require major reconstructive surgery.

--

David C. Nichols --

“Gothmas,” Eclectic Company Theatre, 5312 Laurel Canyon Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends May 17. Adult audiences. $25. (818) 508-3003. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

--

‘Eurydice’ travels deep into artifice

A detente between poetry and impertinence graces “Eurydice” at the Hayworth Theatre. Sarah Ruhl’s delicate surrealist study of the Orpheus myth from the perspective of his wife is one of the playwright’s loveliest works, and its Range View Productions staging is appreciable, although the detailed precision exacts a price.

Since its 2003 Madison Rep premiere, “Eurydice” has become a regional favorite. Les Waters’ celebrated Berkeley Rep mounting traveled first to Yale Rep, then off-Broadway in 2007, the year that Circle X staged the work at Inside the Ford to much acclaim.

Devotees may admire director Trevor Biship’s resourceful approach to Ruhl’s free-associative narrative, which springs some sly twists on Ovid’s scenario. Production designer Amy Maier frames it within a faux-proscenium of red water pipes, where an aqua-toned central unit delineates time and space in kabuki-screen fashion.

Conjoined with Elisha L. Griego’s mercurial lighting panels, Megan MacLean’s playful costumes and Adam Phalen’s fluid sound cues, the physical realization is striking in the manner of high-end theater festivals.

Taken on Ruhl’s specific archetypal terms, the cast is intelligent and proficient. Dina Percia conveys appealing presence and energy as the recidivist heroine, while an initially collegiate Erwin Tuazon grows by the scene as Orpheus. Trevor H. Olsen exudes rapt sensitivity as Eurydice’s dead father, even if such sequences as his building her a room of string in Hades here favor kinetic expression over visceral effect.

Despite a personal quality that tends to irony rather than menace, Clayton Shane Farris gives his all as conduit to and ruler of the underworld. Leonard Zanders, Lauren Birriel and Raymond Lee make gruffly entertaining, George Romero-flavored talking stones.

Still, what goes missing -- the emotional pull that even a quirky postmodern tragicomedy needs to expose its depths -- is crucial. It’s a respectable effort, yet one ultimately more efficient than affecting.

--

David C. Nichols --

“Eurydice,” Hayworth Theatre, 2509 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends May 16. $25. (323) 960-7726. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.

--

It’d be best to fire ‘The Caterer’

In his program note, Brian Alan Lane relates that “The Caterer,” his “dark comedy” now premiering at the Whitefire, was written some decades ago for his MFA thesis. The additional information that the play, which deals with themes of untimely death, was written a year after he survived a car wreck that killed his mother, his brother and his best friend excites our sympathy and our interest, right up front.

Sincere condolences to Mr. Lane, whose impressively extensive list of credits, including television, academia and print media, suggests that he eventually rallied from his loss. Now, Mr. Lane should offer condolences to his audience for the collateral damage of the droning and self-important barrage that is “The Caterer.”

Surreal and non-chronological, the play is essentially a propulsive stream of verbiage that strives for a spoken-word spontaneity. Perhaps intended as absurdism, the scattershot dialectics sound as if they were recorded at a logicians’ pot party.

LeVar Burton plays Oliver Mestman, a doctor who sells dying millionaire video game designer Stan Guest (James Hiroyuki Liao) an “appropriate death.” Stan ponies up $10 million for the privilege of being whacked without notice by Oliver, who makes it clear that this will be a one-time-only murder to provide for his comatose daughter’s medical bills. Yet later, when Stan reconsiders the deal and offers even more cash for Oliver to lay off, Oliver refuses, for reasons that remain ludicrously unclear.

Unanswered questions proliferate. Why exactly does Oliver leave his staunch wife Flo (Burnadean Jones) and take up with Flo’s detested sister Sadie (Angelle Brooks), a devil with a heart of gold who runs an opium “din” that offers addictive sounds to the wired-in clientele? And why does Ingrid (Cynthia Watros), Stan’s adoring wife, never call the cops when she learns that her husband has been poisoned by Oliver, who supposedly has an antidote on him at the time? Instead, Ingrid just screams and cries and takes a fond farewell of her doomed spouse.

Lane, who also directs, manages a reasonably slick staging, thanks largely to his proficient cast. Blessings upon Burton, who invests the prevalent gobbledygook with such authority that we keep struggling to make sense of things, long after the realization that Lane’s philosophically prolix play is a thankless exercise in non sequitur.

--

F. Kathleen Foley --

“The Caterer,” Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 and 8 p.m. Sundays. Ends May 10. $34.99. (323) 960-7724. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.