THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED As Gertrude Stein once put it (but not about this play), “It’s almost about something, and then it’s just not.” Douglas Carter Beane’s comedy brings with it the New York cast that put the play on the map and which secured Julie White a Tony for her role as a Hollywood actors’ agent who fires off scathing retorts with contrapuntal animation and a shit-eating grin. But is it really worth the trouble spending two-plus hours in the theater waiting for said actor (Brian Henderson) and the street hustler (Johnny Galecki) he regularly employs to figure out whether or not they’re really gay, and whether or not they’re really capable of love? If Mitchell (Henderson) comes out of the closet, there goes his career, ’cause a straight guy playing gay is “noble,” whereas a gay guy playing gay is just “boasting.” It’s a play that probes the obvious and discovers almost nothing amidst some sweet repartee, and a quartet of performances (Zoe Lister-Jones plays the hustler’s sardonic girlfriend) that are convincing enough to add the illusion of substance. One brilliant scene in which the actor and the agent interview an offstage playwright for the film rights to the scribe’s openly gay opus snares the Industry’s layers of deception with contemptuous delight. It’s the one scene to which the entire comedy is tethered — philosophically and dramaturgically. As funny as it is, it too pokes at truths so evident, there’s no actual discovery. (Gosh, they lie in Hollywood!) When the play isn’t ripping at such generic truths, it goes after things that just aren’t true. The agent makes a quip about how L.A. has solved the problems of cell phones in the theater by not doing theater. “Choices were made.” Big laugh. At what? A myth about L.A. that’s so false they don’t even believe it in New York anymore. The difference between Beane and Oscar Wilde is that Wilde poked at hypocrisies that were assumed and barely discussed, thereby ripping open some fabric of the culture. Beane tears at threads that are clearly frayed, which is just like a kid firing spit wads from the back of the class just to prove he can. Scott Ellis’ direction is meticulously timed, though the technique used widely across regional theaters of having movable set pieces slips into place with the sound effect of a whoosh, or a reverberating slam – as though lifted from an ancient episode of The Matrix — is fundamentally anti-theatrical and wearisome to those who believe that the possibilities of live theater can rise higher than such cheesy sound effects — and the gaps they’re trying to fill. Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City; Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6 p.m.; through Dec. 21. (213) 628-2772. A Center Theatre Group production. (Steven Leigh Morris)
GO THE LOVER TALKER Deborah Pryor’s mystical potboiler takes us into Romulus Linney turf — the land of Appalachian folklore, where we meet two sisters (Kelley Birney and Stephanie Mitchell) scraping out a roughshod existence in woods rife with sprites. The seductive visits of spirits such as The Red Head (Sharyn Gabriel) and a Pan-like elf named The Love Talker (Sean Galuszka) to the younger sister, Gowdie Blackmun (Mitchell), trigger a brutal protectionist stance by the elder, Bun Blackmun (Birney), based on a combination of Bun’s personal history and perhaps jealousy. Therein lies the glue to the story; far more interesting than the slowly emerging backstory is Pryor’s florid, indigenous poeticism, which carries with it primal philosophies drawn from a stark life, ruminations that cut to the bone of who we are beneath the veneer of our wobbly comfort and confidence. All of this comes wrapped in the authentic rags and dirt of Galuszka’s staging (costumed and choreographed by Gabriel) and Logan Wippern’s ominous lighting design — working together to lift Pryor’s mystery into a visceral event. Son of Semele Theater, 3301 Beverly Blvd., L.A.; Tues.-Thurs., 8 p.m.; through Dec. 11. (818) 255-5330. Dancing Barefoot Productions. (Steven Leigh Morris)
The Little Dog Laughed
The Love Talker
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THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS It’s a merry Guy Ritchie Christmas for the British louts in Anthony Neilson’s dark, uneven holiday comedy. Security guard Gary (Doug Newell) finds a short man in glitter and knickers (K.M. Davies) breaking into his London warehouse. (Christie Wright’s set is made of boxes that appear to stretch on endlessly, like Citizen Kane’s Xanadu.) Bound to a chair, the wee bloke tries to convince Gary and his best mate, Simon (Troy Metcalf, a boulder-sized tough), that he’s not a burglar but an elf — or, more precisely, “an employee in an international gift-distribution agency.” Neilson bills his real-time hour-length show as a savagery of Yuletide, and sure enough, the tremulous elf is addicted to a white powder he swears is the spirit of Christmas, and for which the thugs promptly try to shake him and Santa down — even if it ruins Christmas. (Neilson’s one truly bleak gag is that the drug is forbidden for raped children.) The entrance of a headstrong local hooker named Cherry (Nina Silver) demanding Power Rangers for handjobs is a needed jolt of energy, as is the elf’s bribe of wishes in exchange for freedom. Yet, director Robert Pescovitz isn’t able to reconcile the sweetness of Neilson’s spot-on observations of blue-collar holiday blues with his sour frustration vented at his bottom-feeding characters, who are blind to anything greater than their own materialism and misery; we exit with neither redemption nor catharsis. Pasadena Playhouse, Carrie Hamilton Theatre, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7:30 p.m.; through Dec. 20. (800) 595-4849. A Furious Theatre Company production. (Amy Nicholson)
