Theater Reviews: Cinderella the Musical, Equus, Eternal Equinox, Monkey Madness

Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru Aug. 9. (310) 822-8392. (Bill Raden)

TRUE WEST
After a nearly 30-year tenure in the repertory canon, Sam Shepard’s satirical portrait of the playwright as an existential combat zone has more than demonstrated its resilience under fire. Boasting one of Shepard’s most celebrated comic conceits — the odd-couple pairing of struggling Hollywood screenwriter Austin (Tiger Reel) with his estranged, dissolute vagabond of an older brother, Lee (Andre Carriere) — and what is certainly a bravura feat of dramatic misdirection, the play uses deceptively straightforward naturalism and accessible situational comedy to lure its audience into the shifting surfaces and unsettling ambiguities of Shepard’s carefully constructed, ulterior metatheatrics. Unfortunately, the textual tack into allegorical waters leaves director Wendy Obstler and her lamentably misconceived production irretrievably beached. Obstler’s insistent oversimplification of the brothers’ fratricidal conflict as some kind of pathological projection of parental personalities not only cuts her actors off at the knees but also makes nonsense of the characters’ critical merging of identities in Act 2. Carriere has enough confidence and personal charisma to salvage Lee as a creditable exercise in manipulative cunning and savage self-interest. But without a coherent Austin (Reel’s goes missing due to inaction) to engage, even that personal triumph can’t rescue Shepard’s ruminations on the writer’s quest for authenticity and truth.

Dallas Ocean/GTC

Eternal Equinox

Equus

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Lyric-Hyperion Theater, 2106 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; through July 25, www.insightamerica.org. (800) 595-4TIX. Njoy Productions and The Lion’s Den. (Bill Raden)