Hannah Logan’s tangled redneck gothic boasts a number of firsts: It is the first production for a first-time playwright; the inaugural work of the Ground Up Theatre Company; and the first time at the helm for director Eileen Galindo. Unfortunately, these firsts factor into a fatal algebra of inexperience that makes for a prosaic, overly schematic yet dramatically shapeless adaptation of Logan’s own short stories. Set amid the moral decay of the mid-’70s Bible Belt, the fictional Lakeview Mobile Home Park is host to an all-too-familiar potpourri of Dixified dysfunctionalism: shit-kicking ex-cons, unwed-mother alcoholics, overeaters, incest victims and intolerant preachers. Whether any of these walking wounded will achieve eventual redemption and break the intergenerational chain of victimizer-victim seems to depend on their willingness to embrace Logan’s New Age gospel of self-actualization and unconditional love. If you fail to recognize the epigrammatic wisdom of Adult Children of Alcoholics and its 12 steps beneath the play’s theological veneer, have no fear; the playwright obliges with a phantasmagoric character named “Higher Power” (Kathleen Ingle), who mysteriously drifts through the scenes. Logan is nothing if not forthright. Which is not to say the evening is totally bereft of pleasures. These are mostly provided by an unusually talented and seasoned double-cast ensemble (the fine Peter Allas and P.J. Marshall are standouts), whose game effort almost manages to transcend the script’s considerable flaws.
Fri., June 13, 7 p.m.; Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sun., July 27, 2 p.m. Starts: June 13. Continues through July 27, 2008

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