Lady Windermere’s Fan

Reviewed by Bill Raden
Chalk Rep at Clark Library, Jefferson Park
Through August 3

Photo: Courtesy of Chalk Repertory Company

Los Angeles might not have invented the dubious summer practice of combining outdoor performance and picnicking (the current best evidence implicates the sixth century BCE Greeks), but it arguably played a role in re-institutionalizing it by inaugurating the L.A. Phil’s “Music Under the Stars” concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in 1922.

That means Chalk Rep, the feisty young company that bills itself as being “dedicated to producing classical and contemporary plays in unconventional spaces,” was rather late in the game when it inaugurated its own annual theater-under-the-sun productions last summer on the grounds of UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library with director Jennifer Chang’s multi-racially cast revival of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan.

With this remount of the drawing room comedy — and Wilde’s first certified commercial hit — Chang reassembles nearly all of her original cast (Jacques C. Smith replaces lone no-show Owiso Odera as this year’s stolid Lord Windermere) and all of her design team to establish a Chalk tradition with a production that faithfully delivers both the unique pleasures and the eccentricities of last year’s effort.

Chief among the former is the Clark Library itself. A 1920s English Baroque gem in the historic heart of the West Adams neighborhood, the former mansion’s terraces, walled gardens and whimsical follies become class-relevant backdrops to the production. The site also serves as an ornamental corollary to the gilded container of 19^th century melodramatic conventions from which Wilde launches his comic assault on the Puritan intolerance of late-Victorian bourgeois respectability.

It’s not always a snug fit. Act I, which Wilde sets in the Windermere “morning room” but which Chang stages on the Clark’s rear patio, is taken up by obligatory exposition as, first, Brian Slaten’s dashingly cynical Lord Darlington, and, then, society gossips Allie Jennings (as the flighty Lady Agatha) and Teri Reeves (delightfully venomous as the Duchess of Berwick), pay calls on Amielynn Abellera’s priggish Lady Windermere, while laying out the playwright’s ideological poles.

Instead of merely restaging the act for outdoors, however, Chang and scenic designer Art Betanzos surreally decorate the terrace with distinctly indoor lamps and furnishings — an inside-out choice suited to a stage adaptation of The Beverly Hillbillies, perhaps, but hardly in character for the rigidly conventional Windermeres.

Act 2’s pivotal ballroom scene, in which Lady Windermere is forced to finally meet Tess Lina’s society-crashing parvenu, the mysterious Mrs. Erlynne, makes a far more comfortable transition to the far end of the Clark’s sunken lawn, to which Chang gives an additional immersive spin by drafting audience members as guests and having them announced by butler/emcee George Wyhinny.

The real rewards of Chang’s production, however, come with the epigrammatic fireworks of Act 3. That’s when Windemere’s twits and halfwits — Feodor Chin as Cecil Graham; Scott Keiji Takeda as Mr. Hopper;Peter Wylie as the Mrs. Erlynne-smitten Lord Augustus; and standout Amin El Gamal as the Decadent dandy Dumby — gather in Darlington’s rooms to let down their hair in a delicious barrage of some of Wilde’s choicest bon mots.

Thanks to authoritative and affecting performances by Lina and Abellera, the play eventually spreads its wings for a perfectly satisfying flight. That it might have soared to the Wildean heights of a more outrageous artifice is suggested by flourishes of inspired wit, such as Lady Windermere’s inventive fan hat, that occasionally come through in Halei Parker’s otherwise restrained, modern-dress costume design.

Chalk Repertory Company at William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron St., Jefferson Park; Sat.-Sun., 6 p.m.; through Aug. 3. Chalkrep.com

Sacred Elephant

Reviewed by Paul Birchall
Odyssey Theatre
Through August 17

Photo by Rob Keith

If you don’t like elephants, you’re going to have a bit of a problem with performer Jeremy Crutchley’s solo show about the joys and sorrows of the great and wondrous species we call Elephantidea Proboscidea. Elephants, elephants, elephants. Big ones, little ones, African ones, Indian ones – they’re all discussed, analyzed, and raised to the level of near-deity.

If only this were truly a work of elephant theater!  And while watching the show, one’s mind can’t help but drift to consider precisely what kind of a play an elephant would like.  Would they enjoy ancient tragedies, such as The Tale of Babar’s Father (who died from eating a bad mushroom), or would they enjoy delightful musicals, such as the production of Dumbo, supposedly in development for a Broadway opening even as we speak (no joke, that)?

The play consists of a strikingly atmospheric and impassioned monologue about the mythology, biology and anthropology of the great beasts. It’s clearly aimed to spur environmental action, even though the general plotlessness is unable to sustain attention for its duration.  Certainly, there’s some pleasure to be had in just listening to the charismatic, gravel-voiced Crutchley, in his assured Shakespearean stentorian tones, as he declaims an adaptation of poet Heathcote Williams’s poem about elephants.  However, the play’s narrative is anything but elephant sized; rather, the events strain to fill the show’s 70-minutes. Although there may be something like twenty gazillion muscles in an elephant’s trunk, there are substantially fewer events to sustain this play.

Still, director Geoffrey Hyland’s somber staging boasts an eeriness that is surprisingly involving, though it steadfastly lacks any elephant-like punch.  Crutchley, dressed in a wrinkly grey schmatta, shaggy grey dreadlocks, with dusty grey make-up (and peeping, creepy red eye-liner), is credited in the program as a character named “The Other.”  However, if he is anything but an elephant, I’d eat my hat.  All he needs is a button on his lapel that reads “I ‘heart’ Babar.”

During the show, Crutchley staggers about the stage like a wise old beast, intoning bits of elephant trivia.  He wiggles his arms like an elephant’s trunk, and shakes his legs like huge pachyderm limbs.  It’s a performance that arrestingly and intriguingly conveys an elephant-like wisdom and personality from the inside out:  It’s real method acting, and it is indeed almost spooky to watch him amble over the stage, glare at us with his sad old eyes, and thump about in an elephant rage.

Sadly, it is here that the work falters:  Williams’s writing is described as a poem, but it is essentially little more than a Wikipedia essay on elephants.  “An elephant can walk on the tip of its toes!” notes Crutchley at one point.  “An elephant in distress will weep salt tears,” he claims elsewhere.   These are all wise and true points, yes, and the purpose is clearly to educate us to the grandeur and beauty of these great beasts, but as a work of storytelling, the piece seems disappointingly trivial, Crutchley’s moody performance notwithstanding.

Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd, WLA; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through August 17.  (310) 477-2055, odysseytheatre.com.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Reviewed by Terry Morgan
The Group Rep
Through Sept. 7

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Photo by Drina Durazo

The current production of Tennessee Williams’s classic A Streetcar Named Desire by The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre is a pleasant surprise, a robust take on the material that features a strong ensemble, an outstanding Blanche, and smart direction that brings the material to vibrant life.

In 1947 New Orleans, Blanche Du Bois (Diedra Celeste Miranda) has arrived unexpectedly to stay with her younger sister Stella (Anya Profumo) and Stella’s husband Stanley (Daniel Kaemon). Stella is surprised yet willing to put her up, but the brutish Stanley can’t stand Blanche’s high-toned posturing. Rescue for the desperate Blanche seems to arrive in the form of lonely Mitch (Kent Butler), but Stanley has other plans.

Miranda’s Blanche is a remarkably well-realized performance that ignores decades of over-the-top takes on this character, and instead focuses on making her seem real. Miranda doesn’t play Blanche as a force of nature conjured simply to do battle with Stanley, but rather as a woman whose years of self-delusion have just about broken her before she even arrives at the Kowalski household. Miranda does excellent work with Blanche’s famous monologues, but it’s the subtleties of her performance, the quiet intersections of memory and mania, that stick with you.

Kaemon offers an appropriately frightening Stanley, but is slightly less successful showing the side of Stanley that would keep Stella returning to him. Profumo does a nice job as the conflicted Stella; her remorse and horror at the play’s conclusion is particularly believable and affecting. Butler excels at Mitch, especially in a scene where his fumbling chivalry sours into ugly behavior. The entire ensemble does fine work, effectively creating the French Quarter milieu in countless small moments.

Director L. Flint Esquerra not only gets thoughtful and potent work from his cast but also stages the show cleverly, connecting each scene with moments of neighborhood life that fully use set designer Chris Winfield’s evocative apartment and New Orleans surroundings. Esquerra creates a sense that the drama is happening within a living community, achieving moments of understated beauty such as a woman walking alone through the night street softly singing “Body and Soul” to herself, as if the lead character from another tragedy was just wandering through, unnoticed.

This is an ambitious and successful production that deserves to be a hit for this company.

Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., N. Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m.; through September 7. thegrouprep.com

The Taming of the Shrew

Reviewed by Steven Leigh Morris
Independent Shakespeare Company in Griffith Park
Through August 29

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Photo by Grettel Cortes

That David Melville should bring La Dolce Vita into his family-friendly outdoor staging of Shakespeare’s knotty Italian comedy makes sense: Italian comedies of the 1960s are no less dodgy, regarding their sexual politics, than the amused brutality towards a defiant spouse found in Taming of the Shrew’s central story. Independent-minded, embittered Katherine (Melissa Chalsma) turns obedient only after being violently, jocularly wooed by her flippant suitor/husband Petruchio (Luis Galindo). This is every tyrant’s fantasy.

The complementary point in both Shakespeare’s play, and Melville’s staging of it, is what’s swirling around that central story: Katherine’s docile younger sister Bianca (Erika Soto) joins a Widow (Ashley Nguyen) in morphing from wilting flowers into iron maidens, once they’ve been gently courted and wedded. See, fellas, how far traditional romantic courting will get you?

The only way to get what you want is to beat your disagreeable partner into submission, the way Petruchio also wallops his cowering servant (Richard Azurdia) – who gets beaten even when he doesn’t disagree. (Getting beaten is a running gag.) Never mind La Dolce Vita, this is The Three Stooges via Lucky and Pozzo in Waiting for Godot. All the world’s a circus.

In fact, Melville closes his production with a food-fight, the chaos that ensues when free will gets free reign. So how do we get the trains to run on time? It starts with heavy boots, then moves on to heavy kicks.

Expanding this play and production’s themes beyond courtship and marriage will take you directly to Ukraine and the West Bank, raising the question: When do you try to speak courteously with people who disagree with you, and when is it more prudent to bomb them into submission? Kate and Petruchio are allegories, minor players on a much larger stage.

Perhaps The Taming of the Shrew is ultimately a play about respect, and Shakespeare’s conviction that most people either don’t get much or don’t deserve much in this wasps’ nest world. It’s enough to make you throw up your hands, or just throw up, or go to the circus for diversion.

Jenny Foldenauer’s costumes dress all this up in clown rags with patches – can’t not mention Katherine’s play-opening gown in which Chalsma wields Kate’s power not only with surliness but with stunning La Dolce Vita sexiness. There’s one tiny-but-sizzling moment in which the now-servile Katherine listens to her husband’s proud compliments. She glares out at the audience without saying a word, because her eyes say it all: “You think I really believe his shit? You think I’m not acting?”

Galindo gives Petruchio a wry, Burt Reynolds-ish impishness – at his wedding, he’s donned in a buttocks-revealing thong just to vex his ambivalent bride. If you see ISC’s accompanying Twelfth Night, to watch Galindo transform from the fool Malvolio to the stud Petruchio is certainly a perk.

This production, like Twelfth Night (which Chalsma directed), comes marbled with ballads and ditties and every attempt imaginable to distract us from Shakespeare’s view, even in a comedy such as this, that the world is savage beyond salvation.

Independent Shakespeare Company at the Old Zoo in Griffith Park, in rep, call for schedule; through Aug. 29. Free. 818 (710) 6306, www.iscla.org

Visionary Man

Reviewed by Lovell Estell III
Spirited Hands Productions at the Hudson Theatre
Through Aug. 31

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Photo by Ed Krieger

It’s been said that the Lord moves in mysterious ways, a time-honored insight that resonates eerily when considering the folk art of J.B. Murray, the subject of this exceptional musical (book by Mary Padgelek and Tom Coleman, with music and lyrics by Padgelek).

Murray was a poor, illiterate African-American farmer from Glascock County, Georgia. He lived in a shack without electricity or running water, yet he created over a 1,000 paintings of astonishing depth and beauty (many are exhibited around the world today), and wrote two books. How? Nobody knows. Murray’s explanation was that he was visited by the Holy Spirit who told him to paint “them ones in Hell, and to write a couple of books.” And so, he did. Murray was a simple, committed man of faith, and Jimmer Bolden’s fine performance projects these qualities with artful subtlety.

This remarkable story is narrated in part by Murray’s friend and confidante Dr. Williams (Will North). It tells of Murray’s “call” as he termed it, but also relates how it transformed those closest to him, principally Dr. Williams, his daughter Sara (Jacquelin Schofield), who believed in her father’s visions, and his bloviating, ambitious son Samuel (Yorke Fryer), who sees his father’s freakish behavior as a threat to his all-consuming political ambitions, and an embarrassment to the family (so much so that he has him committed to a psychiatric ward for observation). There’s much animated humor provided by a triad of church tattlers (Sequoia Houston, Courtney Turner, Stephanie Martin), and by a well-intentioned Pastor (Ernest Williams).

Accompanying music is an inspiring blend of contemporary and old fashioned, toe-tapping gospel, complemented by on-target singing of the cast. William Cleckler’s lighting is as understated and effective as his set design, an accordion-like arrangement of panels that subtly evoke a sense of expansiveness and inclusion. Helen Butler gets also it right with the costumes (especially those of the church ladies), and Tom Coleman III brings it all together with, smart, solid direction.

Spirited Hands Productions at the Hudson Mainstage Theater, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru Aug 31. (323) 960-7787, plays411.com/visionary

A Family Affair

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Classical Theatre Lab in Plummer Park
Through August 10

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Photo by Garth Pillsbury

Though just about every serious theatergoer in this country has seen a Chekhov play, few have heard of Alexander Ostrovksy, a prolific 19^th century Russian playwright and satirist whose first work, A Family Affair, was not only banned from the stage but even prohibited from being discussed in the press.

“All the characters are first class villains, the dialogue is filthy, the entire play is an insult to the Russian Merchant Class,” complained the irate censor’s report. This was in 1850; eight years later, however, a new more progressive czar had assumed power, and the play was staged, the first of many comedies Ostrovksy wrote lampooning the nouveau riche and that era’s entrepreneurial class. As some things remain constant, among them human greed, Ostrovksy’s work remains both funny and relevant.

Condensed into 80 minutes and directed by Mel Green with a few choice contemporary updates, the story concerns a well-to-do businessman, Bolshov (Joe Hulser), who is head over heels in debt and facing debtors’ prison and total ruin unless he can engineer a way out. A lawyer, Rispolozhensky (Donald Wayne) suggests that he temporarily sign his property over to his clerk Lazar (Darryl Armbruster), an ambitious up-and-comer with designs on Bolshov’s daughter Lipochka (Lonni Silverman). So fatuous and full of himself is Bolshov that he hasn’t an inkling of the conspiracy between Rispolozhensky and Lazar to purloin his estate until it’s too late.

While Bolshov’s money troubles may trigger events, a lot of the comedy emanates from the women in his household, and their conflicting notions of what constitutes a marriageable male prospect: a dashing uniform or a portfolio full of money, an elegant impoverished aristocrat or a stout wealthy bourgeois. Their pretentious ambitions and hollow system of values go hand in hand with the men’s unscrupulous business antics.

Colorfully costumed by Natalie Shahinyan, the production moves at a crisp pace, with ample hilarious moments. There’s some mugging among the ensemble; Hulser’s careless merchant is too much the clown, and a bland Armbruster leaves opportunities unexplored. But Silverman as a spoiled tantrum-tossing debutante and Wayne’s understated alcoholic solicitor each fashion a comic gem of a performance. Yet as terrific as they both are, they are upstaged by Riley Dandy, who plays the household’s lowly servant with such flair and fluidity that she steals every scene she’s in.

Classical Theatre Lab, Fiesta Hall Courtyard, Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd., W. Hlywd.; Sat. 5 p.m.; Kings Road Park, 1000 N. Kings Rd., W. Hlywd; Sun. 4 p.m. (no perf July 27); through August 10. 323-960-5691, classicaltheatrelab@gmail.com.

The Way You Look Tonight

Reviewed by Neal Weaver
Odyssey Theatre
Through August 24

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Photo by Ed Krieger

Peter Lefcourt’s romantic comedy takes a wry, witty, and occasionally wicked look at sexual mores in Los Angeles in 2014.

Dashing gynecologist Teddy (Robb Derringer) and beautiful Esme (Robin Riker) were married for 16 years, but split up over Teddy’s infidelities. (He declares he had only two affairs in all those years, which nowadays almost counts as fidelity.) Now they have been divorced for four years, and each has found a new significant other. Esme is remarried to Bernard (John Marzilli), the producer of slightly raunchy reality TV shows. But she’s curious about Teddy’s new partner, so she arranges a dinner for the two couples at the Brasserie, formerly her and Teddy’s restaurant of choice. She’s more than non-plussed to discover that Teddy’s new mate is male — an aristocratic British part-time cross-dresser named Robyn (Sean Smith). And Esme is freaked out when Robyn insists on joining her for a trip to the “ladies.” Shortly thereafter Esme and Robyn happen to meet at an exclusive shoe emporium on Melrose, and in an impulsive act of generosity, Robyn buys Esme a chic pair of Fluevogs, which make her feel glamorous and adventurous.

Esme is still perplexed by the discovery that Teddy has taken up with another man (“I can’t compete with that,” she says. “After all, I don’t have a penis.”) She arranges a lunch-date with Teddy, on the pretext of talking about their son’s imminent college graduation. (The boy’s major is in micro-brewery management.) But even before they get round to ordering lunch, old fires are rekindled, and the two wind up in a passionate clinch. A knowing waiter (Blake Silver) slips him the address of a nearby motel and they’re off and running.

Lefcourt’s clever script is knowing about all sorts of L.A. folkways, and he neatly skewers the vanity of Angelenos in a series of scenes before their various bathroom mirrors, as they tweeze, floss, brush, gargle, snip nose-hairs, and primp. He adroitly avoids resolving the many issues raised by finessing the ending.

Director Terri Hanauer (who is also Lefcourt’s wife) has cast the piece beautifully, and given it a stylish production. One can’t quite buy the notion of Teddy and Robyn as an “odd couple,” but Derringer is appropriately debonair, and Smith offers plenty of dry wit.

Marzilli’s Bernard is laid back in the modern manner, but still gets riled when he discovers his wife is cheating on him with her ex. Riker offers bountiful charm as the cause-loving Esme, and Silver scores nicely as the interlocutor, Ishmael, and also plays several small roles.

Celine Diano’s set is minimal but colorful, using brightly painted banners to suggest the various locales, and Shannon Kennedy’s costumes are just right for these modish L.A. denizens.

Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through August 24. (323) 960-7712, plays411.com/tonight.

Luigi

Reviewed by Pauline Adamek
Inkwell Theater at VS Theatre
Through August 16

Photo by Lew Abramnson

Louise Munson’s meandering and nostalgic family drama is set in Italy during a summer holiday. Two American siblings touch base with their Italian mother’s parents and brother, discussing poetry and philosophy while drinking and dining, reading, playing board games, singing songs and telling stories. Much of the conversation is in Italian, with some translation here and there.

David Mauer’s pretty scenic design features a dining table in a rustic courtyard within a Tuscan landscape, and it’s there that all but one of the play’s countless scenes are staged. The long table is frequently set with — and then laboriously cleared of — plates, napkins, bowls of food and ever-present glasses of wine or morning coffee mugs.

Quiet late-night exchanges between 13-year-old Anna (Erin McIntosh) and her grandfather Luigi (Ray Xifo)happen over candlelight. Anna has aspirations to write poetry and receives kindly assistance, plus language lessons, from her grandfather.

Over the course of a drawn-out two-act evening (stretching close to two and a half hours), a portrait of this extended family gradually emerges. Anna’s mother Maria (Nicola Bertram) flies into to rages or bursts into tears at the slightest provocation; it turns out her husband has left her. Anna is angry and resentful at her “lame-o” parents but enjoys becoming acquainted with her aging grandfather. Anna’s older, guitar-strumming brother Max (Ryan Plourde) is smitten with his uncle Paolo’s animated girlfriend Diana (played by Gian Franco Tordi and Stephanie Sanchez, respectively). Anna’s grandmother Mariella (Helen Duffy)beams beatifically and mangles the Italian language, occasionally engaging in a passionate political argument.

With one notable exception, the cast of seven gives adequate performances. Director Annie McVey’s sluggish pacing conforms to an indulgent script that offers little variation or dramatic development, and suffers from some heavy-handed foreshadowing (lemons fall from the tree, Anna’s tape recorder keeps running out . . .) In one scene, the love-struck Max exhorts Diana, a modern dancer and a inept yoga practitioner, to demonstrate a dance routine. The expressive sequence of movements that follows seems so intentionally bad that I fully expected Diana to reveal she was only pranking him! Another scene consists of a pointless and not especially funny story, related by Paolo over dinner, about a dog stealing a woman’s purse at a banquet.

Consequently, the often rambling scenes lack purpose and prove soporific, lurching towards a tragic finale that is only implied.

Inkwell Theater at the VS Theatre, 5453 W. Pico Blvd, L.A. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through August 16. inkwelltheater.com/

The Manor

Reviewed by Jenny Lower
Theatre 40/City of Beverly Hills at Greystone Mansion
Through August 15

Photo by Ed Krieger

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Kathrine Bates’ The Manor, staged by Theatre 40 for the 12^th year in a row at the lavish Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, owes its success as much to the popular taste for highbrow voyeurism that has fueled shows like Downton Abbey as to its own particular merits.

Directed by Flora Plumb, this retelling of the real-life misfortunes that befell the Doheny family (rechristened here as the MacAlisters) lets audiences eavesdrop on the confrontations that culminated in a murder-suicide and the family’s near financial ruin. Our slipping inside the sequestered grounds — as the last survivor(s) to the tempestuous events, with the attendant glimpse into the lives of the fabulous and troubled — is the single most compelling reason to see this satisfyingly sudsy production.

The event opens as patriarch Charles MacAlister (Darby Hinton, double cast with Mark Rimer) bequeaths his newly built estate to his son Sean (John-Paul Lavoisier) and his new bride Abby (Annalee Scott, sharing the role with Shelby Kocee) on their wedding day. The play traces the buildup to and fallout from the Teapot Dome scandal that eventually embroiled the senior Doheny and the Harding administration. Events soon spiral when Charles is asked to finance a loan to his crony, Senator Alfred Winston (Daniel Leslie).

Audiences split into groups, guided among the downstairs rooms by a trio of grave-faced servants. If scenes occasionally feel less than fresh, it’s worth noting that the show’s structure demands most be performed thrice. (And then there’s the matter of the decade-plus run.)

The women turn in the most convincing performances: Bates is regal as the second Mrs. MacAlister, with Sarah van der Pol a standout as the brassy cockney wife to Abby’s tormented childhood friend Gregory Pugh (Jaymes Wheeler in the performance reviewed). Scott makes a compelling ingénue as Abby, the newest entrant to the MacAlister clan, struggling with divided affections.

The setting requires few props, and an early show time lets the cast take advantage of the natural light filtering in from the floor to ceiling windows. As we wander across the tiled floors, there’s time to savor the neoclassical fireplaces, the carved, gleaming woodwork of the main staircase and the million-dollar views of Los Angeles, a thriving borough when the play’s incidents took place.

Theatre 40 in association with The City of Beverly Hills Recreation and Parks Department at Greystone Mansion, 905 Loma Vista Dr., Beverly Hills; July 24, 25 and Aug. 7, 8, and 15, 6 p.m. (310) 694-6118; www.theatre40.org.

Paternus

Reviewed by Terry Morgan
Rogue Machine
Through August 9

In addition to the two-show schedule Rogue Machine generally runs, the company also does things such as their late-night “Off The Clock” productions. Daphne Malfitano’s Paternus is the latest entry in this series, and while it’s enjoyable for its strong acting and some good writing, its structure is flawed and it’s too short to achieve the catharsis it’s looking for.

Steve (Darrell Larson) and his teenage son Stephen (Timothy Walker) are driving to a family outing when their RV gets stuck on an isolated mountain road during a snowstorm. The two haven’t gotten along well for years, with Steve in particular being a bully. As the snow continues to fall and they realize help isn’t coming anytime soon, father and son have to prepare for the worst.

Larson brings an intensity of emotion to his performance, from the harsh cruelty of Steve’s bullying to his more forgiving love as Steve realizes they may not survive. He’s so good and committed in the role that the show is worth seeing for his acting alone. Walker is fine as the cowed and resentful Stephen, but the play spotlights the father’s character more than the son’s, and so Walker gets less to do.

Director Mark St. Amant inspires great work from his cast, and he stages the piece with graceful simplicity. (The final scene is an unexpected moment of visual beauty.)

Malfitano’s play features an intriguing situation and a familial relationship that makes the work more compelling still. Her decision, however, to unfold the action in reverse, concluding with the beginning of the story, robs us of what should be a supremely dramatic moment.

The play’s brief length (45 minutes) curtails the benefits of expansion, and perhaps of adding characters that we now only hear about secondhand.

Rogue Machine, 5041 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. Fri.-Sat. 10:30 p.m. through August 9. roguemachinetheatre.com