Psychic Destruction and Deliverance

Lust, decadence and obsession invade Pacific Resident Theatre with sardonic wit and chilling lack of sentiment in a daring, inventive staging of “Lulu”--which turns out to be a real Lulu of a play. Expect no mercy.

Not that we’d ever seek pity for human fallibility from playwright Peter Barnes. In his savage black comedy “The Ruling Class,” an innocuous Christlike kook achieved social respectability through his transformation into a latter-day Jack the Ripper. As an adapter, Barnes finds a source right up his dark alley in the forefather of German abstract Expressionist theater, Frank Wedekind.

A century ago, Wedekind assaulted Victorian-era sensibilities by exposing the terrible consequences of repressed sexuality. His most enduring works, the “Lulu” cycle (“Earth Spirit” and “Pandora’s Box”), employ ground-breaking sexual frankness to depict the conquests of a heartless, beautiful libertine.

Condensed by Barnes into an episodic evening of unchained libidos and psychic destruction, “Lulu” chronicles the rise and fall of a penniless flower girl (Valerie Dillman) who’s rescued from the incestuous clutches of her scoundrel father (Frank Collison) by a Pygmalion-like publishing tycoon (Robert Bailey). After grooming her for society, he falls for her manipulative charms--as does every other male who comes in contact with her.

This Lulu may be fair, but she’s no lady. In an extraordinary performance, Dillman depicts a sexual predator at the height of her seductive powers who ends up yet another victim of the passions unleashed by dangerous impulses she can exploit but never control. At the end of an unfailingly convincing downward spiral, Dillman’s burnt-out cinder hauntingly embraces both destruction and deliverance from the unfillable hole at the pit of her soul.

Though Wedekind condemns a repressive society unable to accommodate sexual urges, he is equally unsparing toward his loveless characters. Lulu is a willing blank slate for projected animas--all desire her, many possess her body, but no one knows her. And Lulu herself looks no further inward than her own appetites. By the time Lulu’s victims (Bailey, Norman Scott, Dennis Madden, Wayne Grace, Jennifer Taub, Nick Rogers and Alexander Enberg) realize their catastrophic folly, it’s always too late--nor would they have acted any differently.

Outrageously comic and uniformly excellent performances emphasize the farcical elements in Jessica Kubzansky’s carnival-atmosphere staging, which ends with Lulu’s victims flanking the stage wearing clown noses--but the laughs have no soft edges.

Rather than sympathy, “Lulu” evokes a contemplative mockery colder even than Brecht in its lack of social or political conscience. This stunning descent into the purely Freudian psyche, stripped of all civilized comfort, is steeped in laughter, eros and horror. But no mercy.

BE THERE

“Lulu,” Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends May 2. $20. (310) 822-8392. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.