A picture of Miller’s mercurial life story

Let’s drop a few names: Man Ray. Max Ernst. Joan Miro. Pablo Picasso.

Lee Miller was a close associate of these artists and a remarkable talent in her own right. After an early career as a fashion model, the New York-born Miller pursued a career as a photographer, becoming Man Ray’s studio assistant, lover and muse. Later, she covered World War II as a photographer and reporter.

Since her death in 1977, Miller has been championed by Antony Penrose, her son with Surrealist painter Roland Penrose. He wrote the 1985 biography “The Lives of Lee Miller� and has now crafted a theater piece, “Lee Miller: The Angel and the Fiend,� which is being presented at the Chance Theater, an Anaheim Hills venue co-founded by Miller’s grandniece, Erika Ceporius Miller. Ceporius Miller’s husband, Oanh Nguyen, directed the presentation.

A combination slide show and concert reading, the program tells Miller’s life story in images of and by her, accompanied by excerpts from letters and diaries, which capture her mercurial personality. Antony Penrose is portrayed by John Bolen, sitting among boxes of writings that mother kept hidden from son. Ceporius Miller, as Lee Miller, speaks from a lectern, while three influential men in her life -- Man Ray (Ventura Alvarez), Roland Penrose (Sean Hannaway) and photographer David Scherman (Warren Draper) -- are posted behind music stands. Only their faces are visible in the darkened theater, so as not to draw too much focus from the show’s true stars: the projected photographs.

Miller’s war photos are the most resonant images. She captured something elemental, whether documenting a life-or-death surgery at an Omaha Beach field hospital or recording the ghostly beauty that clung to bomb-shattered cities. Many of the pictures bear an astonishing resemblance to what has been transmitted out of Iraq -- making them both timely and timeless.

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“Lee Miller: The Angel and the Fiend,� Chance Theater, at the back of an industrial park, 5576 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills. Saturdays and Sundays, 5 p.m. Ends May 18. $15. (714) 777-3033. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.