Lee Margaret Hanson and Jeremie Loncka in A Perfect World at the Actors Lab Theatre at the Ivy Substation. (Photo courtesy of the Actors’ Gang)
Lee Margaret Hanson and Jeremie Loncka in A Perfect World at the Actors Lab Theatre at the Ivy Substation. (Photo courtesy of the Actors’ Gang)

Actors’ Gang One Act Festival 

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Actors’ Gang
Through April 20 

This program of original work in the Actors’ Gang One Act Festival illustrates how a misguided directorial choice can undermine a strong piece of writing, while a sketchier script can be illuminated by a gifted performance.

The production, which runs in repertory with Sartre’s No Exit and Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, consists of three plays by company members. The most successful — Lynde Houck’s A Perfect World, directed by Danielle Powell — features Lee Margaret Hanson and Jeremie Loncka as Lisa and Jim, two intellectually-challenged innocents who form a friendship as young children and remain together through old age. Confined to a room, the pair spend their lives gazing out the window, in contemplation of trees, falling leaves, chirping birds, the distant moon — and each other. It’s the sort of whimsical idyll that can easily get too precious, but Hanson draws her sweet albeit temperamental punchinella with an amalgam of imagination and truth that keeps that irksome quality at bay. Projection designer Cihan Sahin’s effusion of flowers during the transitions and Bosco Flanagan’s shifts in lighting help sustain the lilting mood throughout.

James Bane’s Tradition, or How I Learned To Kill Myself is a rumination on what it means to be an American male, specifically if you’re from Tennessee, played football, studied theology, and served overseas in the marines — all of which this playwright has done. As a marine, Bane followed in the tradition of his father and grandfather (I’m assuming the play, while not literally autobiographical, is so inspired). Directed by Tess Vidal, it’s a construct for four voices: James (Guebri Vanover), Daddio (Kaili Hollister), Grandad (Andrea Monte Warren) and buddy Brad (Quonta Beasley). This is a visceral work that spotlights the interior chaos of a soldier confronted with violence, futility, and thoughts of suicide — pitted against the expectations of his family and community. While it’s got potential in spades, few of its virtues are effectively relayed in the staging. Under Vidal’s direction, none of the female performers are convincing as individuals scarred by war; none establish a distinctive identity. Instead, the play comes off as a choral ensemble piece marked by faux passion and posturing.

Directed by Zoë Hall, Bob Turton’s Clean Slate, with Mary Eileen O’Donnell and Tom Syzmanski registers as the most under-rehearsed and under-produced of the three. The setting is a lab, where a behavioral psychiatrist (Syzmanski) is trying to resurrect the lost memory and sense of self of an older woman (O’Donnell). It’s a Twilight Zone sort of tale with the commensurate twist, but O’Donnell’s dementia-stricken senior is little more than a workshop rendering, too underdeveloped to be interesting. Syzmanski plays the frustrated doctor with as much conviction as he can muster, but under Hall’s direction, the piece never comes to life. Her blocking on the overly spare set seems random, and the main video image (Sahin) is of a violent act in an urban schoolyard that’s rerun multiple times and is a bit too oblique to add significantly to the story.

The Actors’ Gang Theatre at the Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.; Apr. 4-5, 13-14, 18, 20; through Apr. 20. (310) 838-4264 or https://ci.ovationtix.com/35132/production/1003768. Running time: approximately one hour and 50 minutes with two short intermissions.