Theater Reviews: The Ballad of Emmett Till, Dual Citizens, The Subject Was Roses

SLAUGHTER CITY There's a lot of anger onstage in poet-playwright Naomi Wallace's 1995 agitprop. Certainly the union meatpackers who work in the play's foul sausage factory — Sarah Krainin's viscera-strewn, blood-spattered set looks like it hasn't been cleaned since the publication of The Jungle — are bitter, mainly at the dithering plant manager, Baquin (Bart Petty), with whom they're deadlocked in stalled contract negotiations. And black floor supervisor Tuck (Brent Jennings) is no less happy with the condescending indignities heaped on him by a racist, white management. Not all the grievances are job-related. Veteran gutter Roach (Christina Ogunade) has rage and intimacy issues stemming from a childhood molestation. And her illiterate, would-be suitor, Brandon (Christopher Emerson), still bears the raw, psychic scars from an extreme act of employer violence dating from his youth. Throw in anti-Semitism, homophobia and gender discrimination, add several musical numbers (courtesy of composer Andrew Ingkavet) and a dose of comic relief, and you'd have enough plot material for 10 such shows. But Wallace then adds the parallel storyline of the otherworldly, ambisexual scab, Cod (Noelle Messier), his/her love for Roach's gal pal, Maggot (Sarah Boughton), and hate for the mysterious, Mephistophelian Sausage Man (Alexander Wells), and the play's message — along with its indignation — all but disappears in the resulting fog of metaphors. Director Barbara Kallir and a talented ensemble's efforts to bring clarity to the chaos are only occasionally rewarded. Son of Semele, 3301 Beverly Blvd., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; Mon., 8 p.m.; through March 15. (Bill Raden)

GO  THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES Richtly textured performances by Frances Conroy and Martin Sheen provide the best reason to see Neil Pepe's meticulous staging of Frank D. Gilroy's 1964 chestnut. The story concerns an only son (Brian Geraghty), home from the Army after World War II. He's now a little more grown-up and able to recognize the fractures of his parents' marriage. The play, and the production, are beautifully understated, and if the climactic scene is less cathartic than it might have been in 1964, that's no reason to stay away. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m.; through March 21. (Steven Leigh Morris) See Theater feature.

PHOTO BY LINDSAY SCHNEBLY

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• Vivian Bearing
• Cris D'Annunzio
• Anna Skubik
• Theatrical Plays
• Theater

GO  WIT Playwright Margaret Edson won the Pulitzer Prize for this intense drama about an English poetry professor who must wrestle with her painful and imminent death. Directed by Marianne Savell, Nan McNamara delivers a peerless performance as Vivian Bearing, a 50-year-old expert on the poetry of John Donne, who unexpectedly finds herself diagnosed with the fourth and final stage of metastatic ovarian cancer. Bearing's doctor (Phil Crowley) and his research assistant (Daniel J. Roberts) are scientists first, with concern for their patients' comfort being an afterthought. So they have no compunction about insisting that Bearing undertake a full regimen of powerful chemotherapy in order to document its physiological effects on the human body. Edson's commentary on American medical practice, however salient, merely lays the groundwork for the play's most compelling and universal theme: the human struggle not only with mortality's looming oblivion but with the unfamiliar and sometimes humiliating infirmity that precedes it. That Bearing's lifelong subject of scholarly study — the poet Donne — was himself consumed by this topic adds another involving layer to the brew. Tough, unsentimental, yet increasingly vulnerable, McNamara's understated duelist-with-death is pitch-perfect. She's supported across the board by a worthy ensemble. Tawny Mertes is especially winning as the kind young nurse whose humanity imparts the play's final message. Actors' Co-op, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m.; through March 28. (323) 462-8460. (Deborah Klugman)