ALL STEPS NECESSARY Director Jim Ortlieb’s staging of Michael Halperin’s Third Reich one-act is visually authentic, thanks to Valerie Laven-Cooper’s detailed costume work, but the production displays a reckless indifference to the story’s intrinsic drama. It takes place in Hermann Göring’s Berlin home, days after the pogrom that became known as Kristallnacht, where a group of top Nazis convene to thrash out the Jewish Question. Göring (Richard V. Licata), along with government allies Walther Funk (Ben Shields) and Ernst Wörmann (Tom Carroll), argues for a somewhat less-than-final solution, one that would strip German Jews of their property but nevertheless permit them to live within proscribed communities. The field marshal’s personal and political enemies, Joseph Goebbels (Michael Oberlander) and Reinhard Heydrich (Larry Reinhardt-Meyer) object to the “live” part of that proposal, though they mostly refrain from articulating the genocidal plan that would become policy four years later. Halperin’s script lacks momentum — the principals bicker over who is harder on the Jews from the moment pastries are served, and that’s about it. Possibly attempting to underscore the banality of these men, Ortlieb goes overboard by letting the performances drift along a one-dimensional plane. Perhaps worse, he doesn’t seem to know what to do with actors when they aren’t speaking; it’s more than distracting to watch a Nazi staring into the audience holding a glass of brandy. Inkwell Theater, 5615 San Vicente Blvd., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; thru June 4 (closing perf June 4, 7 p.m.). (866) 811-4111. (Steven Mikulan) See Stage... More >>>