Theater Reviews : Having the Folks Over for Sex : ‘Us,’ at the Fritz in San Diego, is a dark, provocative look at how our parents shape our relationships, especially the way we love.

SAN DIEGO —  Adam and Eve had to be the last couple that didn’t bring any baggage of parental dynamics into their relationship.

The rest of us can’t escape the insinuation of mothers and fathers into our relationships for good or ill--whether we’re trying to re-create, reshape or reject what we have known.

That’s the point Karen Malpede makes in her 1987 play “Us,” in its West Coast premiere at San Diego’s Fritz Theater. It’s a dark, provocative late-night offering that closes Saturday. A very different production continues through Sept. 17 at City Garage in Santa Monica.

“Us” refers not just to the central lovers of the piece--Jewish-Italian Hannah (K.B. Merrill) and French-Algerian Michel (Duane Daniels)--but to their parents who shaped the way in which they are able to love.

Daniels and Merrill also take turns playing their parents: Michel’s mother, Sylvie, and father, The Man Who Comes In Through the Window; Hannah’s mother, Cora, an American Jew, and Tony, an Italian American.

While the Fritz production is, by the very nature of its subject matter, not going to please a broad audience, Karin Williams’ sophisticated, stylized direction cuts through explicit off-putting depravities to grasp at, and at times reach, universal truths.

Unlike the Santa Monica production, the Fritz staging contains no simulated sex, no nudity, no cross-dressing. Daniels plays all his roles in boxer shorts; Merrill wears a body hugging black leotard. But there is cross-sex role-playing that provides some of the most electrifying moments. Merrill terrifies as Hannah’s father, Tony, screaming abusive epithets, slugging a pillow to suggest a beating of his wife.

In quiet contrast, Daniels, still in those boxers, delivers a chilling monologue as Michel’s mother at a makeup table. It’s a hair-raising memory, delivered with quiet control and dripping with loving words used as daggers to keep young Michel from telling the truth about the brother who abused him.

Williams also made some judicious cuts in what could have been graphic sex scenes and clarified the action by adding a giant pad on an easel for the actors to write the name of which characters they were playing in each scene.

The unfussy set design, credited to Viola Pastuszyn, has the actors working around a black metal ramp, with Merrill at one point playing Hannah’s mother, cowering in the “basement” under the ramp, while Daniels, as Hannah’s father, pounds the grating, bellowing for his meals.

While it is hard to imagine a much better production of this troubling piece, this is still not a truly satisfying work. As fascinating as the parental tales are, it’s still hard to fathom how they led to the doomed passion of Hannah’s and Michel’s affair.

*

Parallels between Hannah’s post-Holocaust upbringing and Michel’s childhood in theAlgerian War are not clear. Another jarring note is Hannah’s tale of her sexual abuse by her father--and the absence of anger she expresses amid all her compassion and understanding for him.

Late-night shows are tricky beasts. And most of them require a jolt of caffeine to sustain interest until near-midnight. Not “Us.” It works like a double espresso.

* “Us,” Fritz Theater, 420 3rd Ave., San Diego, 92101. Final performance Saturday, 10:30 p.m. $10. (619) 233-7505. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

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K.B. Merrill: Hannah

Duane Daniels: Michel

A Fritz Theater production of a play by Karen Malpede. Directed by Karin Williams. Production design: Viola Pastuszyn. Stage manager/dramaturge: Charlie Riendeau.