THEATER BEAT

The word “utopia,” that imaginary site of perfection, comes from the Greek, meaning “not a place.” And it’s this essential irony that playwright Phyllis Nagy hopes to catch in “Never Land,” her tedious poetic ramble in which psychologically fragmented characters long to find a better elsewhere.

Let’s peek in on the crazy, financially strapped Joubert family in its misleadingly grand home in the South of France (tastefully appointed by scenic designer Frederica Nascimento). Grown daughter Elisabeth (Katherine Tozer) is bathing in the living room and spouting shards of high-flown nonsense. Henri (Bradley Fisher), her formally attired, world-weary father, is aghast at his daughter’s nakedness and concerned about her new suitor, who’s expected later that day. Anne (Lisa Pelikan), Elisabeth’s haughty, alcoholic mother, cares primarily about her next bottle and firing nasty rejoinders.

Just as the title characters of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” passively dream of Moscow, the Jouberts futilely fantasize about high-tailing it to England. Elisabeth pretends she’s running off to London to marry her abusive beau, Michael (William Christopher Stephens), while Henri tries to get a job as the manager of a bookshop in Bristol, owned by the Canton-Smiths. This cheerful bourgeois English couple (played by Christopher Shaw and Shannon Holt) visit the Jouberts and struggle to maintain a smiling equanimity in the face of so much violent eccentricity.

Nagy directs this U.S. premiere of her 1998 play at a glacial pace that only exacerbates the work’s pretentiousness. It’s like one of those high-strung T.S. Eliot verse dramas, though written in a stilted prose that aims for flamboyant effects rather than lyrical precision.

The actresses cut sharp, outre figures, and the entire cast of this Rogue Machine offering demonstrates an admirable commitment. To her credit, Nagy (the writer and director of the Annette Bening-led HBO film “Mrs. Harris”) succeeds in constructing her own linguistically curious universe. Trouble is, “Never Land” is a torturous locale for anyone to pass through, including the audience.

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Charles McNulty --

“Never Land,” Rogue Machine at Theatre/Theater, 5041 Pico Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 15. $25. (323) 960-7774, www.roguemachine theatre.com. Running time 2 hours, 55 minutes.

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‘Dracula’ tale, minus the fangs

Turns out that Bram Stoker was once a vampire’s assistant. The “Dracula” author’s day job was managing actor Henry Irving, a Victorian-era A-lister whose massive ego sucked the life out of his entourage -- and was the inspiration for Stoker’s immortal count.

Scott Martin imagines the two artists’ clash in his spirited but curiously bloodless musical, “Children of the Night,” at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.

May 1897: Backstage at London’s Lyceum Theatre, Stoker (Robert Patteri) desperately tries to interest Irving (Gordon Goodman) in playing Dracula in a staged reading of the yet-unpublished novel, pitching the project as a much-needed commercial venture. Irving refuses, even after his wife, the great Ellen Terry (Teri Bibb), intervenes on Stoker’s behalf. Is Irving’s resistance jealousy or snobbery, or does it signal a rift more profound?

Director David Galligan’s lively production is first-rate, with Broadway and West End veterans in the lead roles (the musical direction is by Ross Kalling). Martin serves up the pleasures of the backstage genre, and “Children” contains what may be the first song devoted to the superstition of never saying the name of Shakespeare’s Scottish play aloud in a theater.

But there is something anticlimactic about a story that turns on an actor’s failure to appear in a play reading. Not a satire, not quite a tale of rivalry, the musical has yet to find the dramatic spine that will give its characters satisfying stakes. Despite rich source material, “Children” finally lacks teeth.

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Charlotte Stoudt --

“Children of the Night,” the Beverly Hills Playhouse, 254 S. Robertson Blvd., Beverly Hills. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 1. $15-$25. (310) 358-9936, www .katselastheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

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A captivating clash of the titans

As Roman Polanski is well aware, time does not heal all wounds. Certain actions, no matter how distant or deftly rationalized, can haunt one through a lifetime.

Legendary Hollywood director Leo Greshen, the antagonist in Jeffrey Sweet’s flawed but compelling drama “The Value of Names,” presented by the West Coast Jewish Theatre at the Pico Playhouse, understands that well. Thirty years previously, Leo (authoritative, vigorous Malachi Throne) appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, denouncing several contemporaries, including his best friend, actor Benny Silverman (Peter Mark Richman), with whom he shared a friendship dating to their early days in theater.

The play is set in 1983 outside Benny’s Malibu home -- a sun-kissed terrace beautifully realized by set designer Jeff G. Rack and lighting designer Ellen Monocroussos. After years of unemployment, Benny, now retired, finally recouped his fortunes on a hit sitcom, but neither present prosperity nor the intervening decades has dulled his acute outrage over Leo’s betrayal. Nor have the years erased the ineradicable blot on Leo’s reputation.

When Benny’s daughter, Norma (engaging Stasha Surdyke), is cast in a play Leo winds up directing, the old antagonists meet again.

Although Sweet’s device of making Norma the intermittent narrator seems klunky and uneven, Leo and Benny’s confrontation is a clash of titans, sizzling with wit and bitterness. Director Howard Teichman keeps the tone convincingly naturalistic in an assured staging. Initially, Richman seems to be groping for lines, but once he gets onstage with Throne, any hesitancy evaporates. Wonderful character actors, the two have a field day playing off each other and captivate us in the process.

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F. Kathleen Foley --

“The Value of Names,” Pico Playhouse, 10508 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 22. $22-$35. (323) 506-8024, www.wcjt.org. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

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Needed: One pogoing Polonius

Elsinore meets the Masque in “God Save Gertrude,” now at the Theatre @ Boston Court. Deborah Stein and David Hanbury’s play with music is a punk-rock take on “Hamlet” from the perspective of his beleaguered mother.

As played by Jill Van Velzer with full-throttle commitment, this Gertrude isn’t quite the beauteous majesty of Denmark that tradition dictates. Stein’s scenario occurs in “the recent future or an alternative now,” when revolution is afoot. Barricading herself in a bombed-out theater (surreally designed by Susan Gratch), she works several realities at once. By turns sarcastic, rhapsodic and pathetic in costumer Soojin Lee’s bedraggled evening gown, Gertrude name-drops, exposits and rails in postmodern manner while reliving past glories of anti-establishment stardom with her late first husband. These segments, lyrics by Stein and composer Hanbury, are dynamically effective, recalling “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” Here, as elsewhere, director Michael Michetti makes sharp use of Jason H. Thompson’s space-spanning videos, Rob Oriol’s ominous sound and Steven Young’s spectacular lighting.

Where “God Save Gertrude” goes askew is in a narrative that drowns its most imaginative Shakespearean riffs in generic totalitarian notions. Redrawing Hamlet as a Generation Next icon called Mama’s Boy (Steve Coombs, visually and vocally vivid) is intriguing. Making Claudius a corporatist politico named Man (James Horan, suitably saturnine) approaches cliche. As Ophelia stand-in Daddy’s Girl, the ever-arresting Lily Holleman gives her textually unearned face-off with Gertrude its principal intensity. Ultimately, this nervy experiment needs Polonius, Laertes, Horatio, the ghost and a band to become the subversive rock musical it screams to be.

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David C. Nichols

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“God Save Gertrude,” the Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 8. $32. (626) 683-6883. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.