THEATER BEAT

Ray Bradbury’s venerated work in the science fiction genre can overshadow the comic side of his talent. Such is the gentle appeal of “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” at Fremont Centre Theatre. This resourcefully appointed Pandemonium Theatre Company revival of Bradbury’s tickling parable about five Latinos who yearn for the title apparel is as light as a scoop of vanilla, with just enough unforced spice to maintain its pertinence.

First presented as part of a 1965 trilogy, “Ice Cream Suit” became a free-standing effort in 1972, produced by the Organic Theatre of Chicago. It transpires in a fanciful East Los Angeles, which designer John Edw. Blankenchip shrewdly depicts in barrio-hued flats that mask an array of inventive spatial effects.

The sleekly tailored, blindingly white suit (courtesy of costumer Kathryn Poppen) carries magic, at least for the quintet pooling their resources to buy it. Lovelorn narrator Martinez (Eddie Ruiz) wants to woo beautiful Celia (Verona Masongsong). Idealistic revolutionary Villanazul (Joaquin Garay III) hopes to be a commanding orator. Gomez (Rudy Rodriguez) and Dominguez (Adrian Elizondo) have less-exalted womanizing aims. The wild card: grimy laborer Vamenos (Daniel V. Graulau), longing to raise his social status.

Their time-shared ownership unfolds in episodic vignettes, climaxing when Vamenos wears the suit to the roughest dive in town. Enter good-time girl Ruby (Joy Nash) and Toro (Paul Renteria), her brutish boyfriend. The fracas that results is a slow-motion hoot, realized by director Alan Neal Hubbs, Blankenchip, lighting designer Peter Strauss and the cast to the hilt, followed by a sweetly communal moral.

Some transitions are clunky, some playing more spirited than polished, though consistently sincere. Still, if it’s a wee piece, “Ice Cream Suit” wears well and should charm devotees.

-- David C. Nichols

“The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit,” Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. $20. (323) 960-4451. Running time: 1 hour.

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‘Dias’ destroys stereotypes

Pushing the boundaries of expectation -- particularly when it comes to cultural stereotypes -- is playwright Oliver Mayer’s stock in trade. His new drama, “Dias y Flores,” employs a fanciful modern riff on the “Arabian Nights” to wryly demolish the notion of a monolithic Latino demographic in favor of more complex, idiosyncratic character portraits.

A native Angeleno with mixed Anglo and Latino roots, Mayer straddles the melting pot to bring uniquely poetic voices to people of color. In Luis Alfaro’s minimalist staging for Company of Angels, a quartet of Cuban Americans from Manhattan’s Lower East Side struggle in different ways to reclaim their identities from the roles thrust on them by circumstance. Having escaped as children from a life of predictable boredom back in Cuba, modern-day tale-spinner Sherezad (Marlene Forte) and her brother, Farruco (Mel Rodriguez), are butting their heads against the ceiling of the American Dream.

A trained pianist whose tastes are more attuned to Schubert than salsa, Sherezad even chafes at their given names (“We sound like a couple of refugees from a falafel shop!”). Farruco owns a parcel franchise and his exposure to a wide swath of Hispanic customers leads him to satirical outbursts of subcultural racism, whether against Mexi- cans or generic “Guate-Salva-Duras.”

In the course of fragmentary storytelling that borders on the surreal -- think urban grit meets magical realism -- the siblings discover new bonds of love between themselves and others. Sherezad, on the rebound from yet another failed relationship, finds a soul mate in handsome street musician Silvio (Miguel Angel Caballero), who brings eloquence to the ideologically contraband songs of his namesake, mainland Cuban trovador Silvio Rodriguez Dominguez.

Meanwhile, Farruco’s hermaphroditic employee Pantys (Justin Huen) helps his boss see past his own intolerance.

Flaunting its lyrical romanticism on its literary sleeve, “Dias y Flores” is a far cry from the visceral conflict of “Blade to the Heat,” Mayer’s breakout boxing-ring drama. Some bewildering segments in need of greater clarity make the playwright appear less sure-footed in the arena of the heart, but he continues to illuminate the dreams of underrepresented outsiders with passion and eloquence.

-- Philip Brandes

“Dias y Flores,” Company of Angels Theatre at the Alexandria Hotel, 501 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 15. $20. (323) 883-1717. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

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Lunacy ensues on ‘Resignation Day’

Aug. 8, 1974, should be writer Terry’s red-letter day. Tricky Dick is poised to make unsavory history, a ripe situation for any counterculture satirist. Yet it’s just another vexing distraction for Terry.

Of course, not every anarchistic author in America faces epic writer’s block, a pubescent son who gropes anything that moves, nonstop telephone interruptions from the IRS, porn publishers and couples trying to return a toaster. That alleged electrician crawling through the window after tangling with Terry’s pet sow? Don’t ask.

Welcome to the gonzo spirit of the late, great Terry Southern, which shoots across “Resignation Day” at Sacred Fools Theater. Charles Pike’s absurdist comedy posits the infamous scribe of “Candy” and “Easy Rider” in crisis on the day President Nixon resigns, and it revels in iconoclastic errata.

Pike clearly knows his subject. He doesn’t so much riff on Southern’s life and prose as roll its components up into a sardonic fantasia. In many ways, it’s a representative Sacred Fools outing, and, barring some slack pacing, David LM McIntyre’s ambitious staging explores the script in suitably unhinged ways.

The designs are witty, particularly Cricket S. Myers’ referential sound, and the players are avid. Chairman Barnes pulls his ebullience inward as Terry, cracked yet courtly. His colleagues all go for it. Bonnie-Kathleen Discepolo’s girlfriend Gail is archly straight-faced, Michael Rachlis’ hormonal Bigboy aptly outre. Sean Sweeney gives his interloper a wild-eyed punch, while Joseph Beck and Tifanie McQueen inhale their various phone callers.

In Act 2, when Tanner Thomason, Roy Allen and the scene-stealing Richard Horvitz show up as Terry’s celebrated cronies, lunacy ensues.

In fact, that’s problematic. Act 1 almost amounts to one long, surreal exposition, its groundwork coming full circle without quite earning the final polemic. “Resignation Day” is weirdly worthy, but group brio only intermittently trumps the need for revisions.

-- David C. Nichols

“Resignation Day,” Sacred Fools Theater, 660 N. Heliotrope, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Ends Feb. 21. Adult audiences. $30. (310) 281-8337. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.