Theater Reviews: How Katrina Plays, Mom’s the Word, Elections and Erections, To Kill a Mockingbird

GO  HOW KATRINA PLAYS The late Judi Ann Mason’s character study swirling around the tempests of hurricane Katrina is partly an act of devotion to her brother, journalist BJ Mason (Christopher Carrington), who died at his computer while reporting on the effects and aftereffects of the disaster. The play is a poetical docudrama, accompanied (too sparingly) by the fine Bourbon Street Band. A montage of scenes intersect. Drag queen Bella Sera (Wil Bowers) emcees a traditional hurricane party, with the vivacious ensemble, but in this story, it’s the hurricane and not the party that gets out of hand. Director Tchia Casselle guides a series of monologues and scenes that depict an elderly woman (Elisabeth Noone) abandoned and trapped in a nursing home as the waters rise; a mother (Kvon Harris) and her 10-year-old son (Justin Galluccio) separated by the flood, and who then spend the play seeking each other, sometimes in different cities; a mixed-race couple (Barika A. Croom and Jacob White) on their honeymoon hold each other in an attic, as the floodwaters rise. And Kimberly Niccole turns in a tender, harrowing performance as a young woman seething with racism. Beamed, still images from the disaster accompany the narrative, which, via words and the performances, provides a visceral sense of what it must have been like in the filthy holding pen of the Houston Astrodome. The performance is a memorial filled with a grim, grimy and a sometimes animated testament to who we are, and what we become, in the wake of disaster. Write Act Repertory Theater, 6128 Yucca Ave., Hlywd.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; through October 24. (323) 469-3113. (Steven Leigh Morris)

GO  THE ILLUSION Translator Ranjit Bolt’s adaptation of Corneille’s 17th-century classic starts out stodgily but soon swerves merrily into comic gear. A remorseful father (Kevin McCorkle) seeks the help of a magician (Alexander Wright) in tracking down his estranged son. It turns out the young man, Clindor (Benny Wills) — attached to a fatuous nobleman named Matamore (Jon Monastero) — has been acting as emissary for this overblown buffoon to a lady named Isabelle (Nicole Disson). Something of a Don Juan, Clindor has clandestinely wooed both Isabelle and her maid, Lyse (Kendra Chell), who now smolders with jealousy, aware that her opportunistic paramour has upped his sights on the social ladder. Directed by David Bridel, the production gets laughs from Monastero’s lisping braggart-nobleman, whose grandiose claims to be a mighty warrior and lover evaporate at the mere whiff of a challenge. As the maid, Chell airs much of the script’s wit and wisdom in a smart, snappy performance. Disson and other supporting players also deliver the goods. Wills is fine as the dashing hero, but the production might have been more interesting if he’d played it less upright and instead exploited the character’s deviousness a little more. Eventually the play’s humor deflates, as the magician’s tale mutates into a portrait of adultery and of the marriage between Isabelle and Clindor gone awry. Christina Wright’s costumes add color and charm. Open Fist Theater, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through November 21. (323) 882-6912. (Deborah Klugman)

GO  MOM’S THE WORD Six mothers wrote these intertwined jokes and rants about parenting, and even those who haven’t undergone birth themselves (a minority in the audience I was part of) feel sympathy pangs after Kimleigh Smith starts the show by screaming and pleading for the pain to go away. That agonizingly true opener arcs from “What have I done?” to “How couldn’t I have done this?” Though the trajectory of the show is a vindication of motherhood, the five actors (all parents themselves) cathartically focus on the smelly, slimy, exhausting, self-denigrating, unsexy, paranoid and bewildering qualities motherhood elicits. This certainly isn’t a Precious Moments valentine to parenting; happy moments are so rare, it’s a small feat that director Jerry London makes the closing sufficiently upbeat that the parents in the house don’t immediately make a dropoff at the nearest orphanage. In a nifty bit of casting, Smith, Gina Torrecilla, Becky Thyre and Cathy Schenkelberg are joined by real-life gay dad Hutchins Foster, who steps into an originally female role with just a few tweaks. This casual and enthusiastic evening is worth a babysitter for moms and dads who want to hear others speak the unspeakable. El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., N.Hlywd.; Thurs.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through November 8. (818) 508-0281. (Amy Nicholson)

PARADE Alfred Uhry, Jason Robert Brown and Harold Prince’s musical based on a miscarriage of justice against Leo Frank (T.R. Knight), a Jewish man in 1913 Atlanta wrongly accused of murdering a 13-year-old Mary Phalen (Rose Sezniak) in the pencil factory where she worked, and where Frank was superintendent. Rob Ashford’s sumptuous staging, and Brown’s caressing ragtime/pop score, are in the service of what’s aiming to be tragedy of mythic proportions. Uhry’s predictable storytelling, however, invites us to react to the obvious rather than reflect on the mysterious, turning the entire event into child’s play. Christopher Oram’s set, featuring a shape-shifting Confederate mural, under Neil Austin’s lighting, is gorgeous to look at. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 p.m.; Sun., 1 p.m. & 6:30 p.m.; through November 15. (213) 628-2772. (Steven Leigh Morris) See Theater feature.