GO THE WINCHESTER HOUSE Julia Cho’s play may not have much to do, even metaphorically, with the eponymous tourist spot in San Jose, but her story about a young woman investigating the moment at which she was seduced by a family friend has enough innate mystery at its heart to whet and keep our interest. Via (Kimiko Gelman) is an obscure singer who reenacts moments from an Asian-immigrant family life ruled by a distant physicist father (Nelson Mashita), gossipy mother (Dian Kobayashi) and seemingly unhelpful brother (Greg Watanabe). They are all spellbound by John and Helen Bergin (Arye Gross and Laura Wernette), a witty faculty couple whose summer home they constantly visit. Cho nicely thwarts audience expectations regarding Via’s bitter search for truth and makes some telling observations about how unreliable (or hideously reliable) other people’s memories can be. Still, the show screeches to a halt every time Via sings one of her folky “three and a half songs,” and Via, who directly addresses the audience throughout the 90-minute play, schizophrenically switches from spare poetry to an annoyingly literal narrative to describe the people in her life. Director Chay Yew sensitively orchestrates the action across scenic designer Susan Gratch’s spare apron, whose upstage border is formed by the dense clutter of stored furniture and forgotten paintings, while Jose Lopez’s soft lighting plot accents the characters’ vulnerabilities. Theater @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru June 18. (626) 683-6883. (Steven Mikulan)
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