Insights illuminate three tales of conflict

In “Three Plays by Sara Finney Johnson” at the Zephyr Theatre, the accomplished playwright and television writer-producer applies a facility with tightly scripted dialogue to a wide range of dramatic conflicts, cleverly bridging black and white American experience in the process.

Performance variation resulting from double-casting and occasional lapses into melodrama notwithstanding, these handsomely staged one-acts offer insightful and compassionate reflections on suburban angst, inner-city turmoil and marital tension.

The illusory nature of material contentment figures prominently in the opener, “Simple Things,” about an awkward reunion between two estranged white sisters at the family home that holds painful memories for both.

After economically sketching the unresolved rivalry between dowdy, repressed homebody Marcie (a superb Lee Garlington, alternating with Kathryn Glass) and glamorous but recently humiliated Lindy (Stacey Martino, Elyse Marie Mirto), Adleane Hunter’s staging unravels their dark history with the clinical detachment of an “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” episode.

Although the cause of their psychological scars quickly becomes obvious, the scene ends with a neat shocker. Suffice it to say that if I were Lindy, I wouldn’t be quite so eager to dive into one of Marcie’s home-baked pies.

As its title suggests, “Mazel Tov and Black Eyed Peas” (also directed by Hunter), involves a hard-won interracial rapprochement. On a somber New Year’s Eve in her tenement apartment, Maya (alternately played by TV teen actresses Rae’Ven Larrymore Kelly and Sicily) anxiously awaits the return of her crack-addicted mom. She has to deal instead with the intrusion of their nosy aged Jewish neighbor, Mrs. Levy (Estelle Harris, Bryna Weiss), a Holocaust survivor who used to baby-sit Maya. Although the all-too predictable plot leaves few cliches unexplored and no heartstrings unplucked, it builds to a genuinely touching finale.

With the final story, “Glow,” director Tony Singletary provides a nicely modulated change of pace in a keenly observed, bittersweet portrait of a middle-aged black couple on the verge of ending their 22-year marriage. Perfectly matched Mo’Nique and Gary Anthony Williams ignite the stage with charisma; it is to be hoped that Wendy Raquel Robinson and John Eric Bentley can match it, because Finney Johnson has saved her best writing for last.

-- Philip Brandes

“Three Plays by Sara Finney Johnson,” Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Feb. 15. $20. (310) 671-6400. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

*

Desperation undercuts ‘Haunt’

Sometimes, because theater is a live medium in which we’re sharing the very air with the performers, a play can get under our skin -- and make it crawl -- in ways not even the creepiest B movie can hope to achieve.

Take Justina Walford’s “Haunt,” if you dare. This aimless series of blackout scenes depicts hapless twentysomethings wallowing in drug-addled anomie in a Hollywood apartment complex; it is performed by young hopefuls at the Complex in Hollywood.

The drama here, such as it is, emerges not from the faltering play but from the soul-sucking experience of spending nearly two hours so close to genuine desperation and unwitting embarrassment.

We can feel deep, palpable confusion in every moment of lead actress Andrea Edmondson’s performance as Risa, a young woman who flees some kind of family crisis only to land in an apartment haunted by Jen (Thesy Surface), a gaunt heroin addict who recently died there. But Edmondson is a model of clarity next to her supporting players: the aptly named Surface, who makes a particularly un-supernatural ghost; the charming but unschooled Wai Ying-Tsang as a substance-peddling neighbor and the earnest, plodding Ethan Ubell as a dull would-be boyfriend.

These actors, if not their characters, are often at such cross-purposes onstage it’s almost fascinating to watch. Perhaps director David Lee (not the one from “Frasier”) mistook this strange muddle for a bold theatrical choice; instead, after the guilty fascination wears off, it’s just depressing. The misbegotten “Haunt” is indeed haunting, but for all the wrong reasons.

-- Rob Kendt

“Haunt,” Split.Id Theater @ the Complex, 6470 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 21. $10. (323) 462-2662. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

*

Confrontation sparks a melee

Ambitious intent attends “Rbitrary” at the Melrose Lightspace in Hollywood. Two sets of Dietrich-like gams strut behind a half-curtain cordoning off the ticket table. Audiences receive color-coded stubs and proceed upstairs to the open-air balcony outside the studio space, where a program printed on industrial paper towels is distributed.

Inside, ritual pandemonium reigns. Seated either on the platform units surrounding the space or in a clutch of office chairs in the center, the audience is assaulted from every side by the 11-member cast. Nonsequiturs, syllogisms and a vast array of mimetic maneuvers swirl around as the audience is being seated. And the SARS-masked doctor and his Tootsie Pop-proffering nurse introduce themselves to every single attendee, whether the viewer wishes them to or not.

“It’s not a mystery or a mystical experience,” goes one phrase, which certainly describes the enervated existential ensemble effort that follows. As conceived and directed by Suzan Averitt, “Rbitrary” folds a CalArts thesis project into a group encounter session. The antic writers-performers circle, then infiltrate the house and send their material back and forth across the ever-swiveling central section.

Some monologues seem autobiographical, others sociological, with much ribaldry and street language. Simultaneous kinetic display occurs throughout, and James McCartney’s lighting adds to the melee. A Richard Foreman-esque voice-over from sound mixer John F. Elliott keeps interjecting, and sometimes microphones descend to get audience comments, a risky venture at best.

I left “Rbitrary” deeply conflicted, with a crick in my neck from trying to keep track. The entire cast is very talented, and communal theatrical expression is a form dear to my heart. However, the rehearsal hall and the performance arena are different animals. Though it strives for catharsis, “Rbitrary,” alas, feels arbitrary.

-- David C. Nichols

“Rbitrary,” Melrose Lightspace, 7600 Melrose Ave., second floor, L.A. Fridays -Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Jan. 31. Mature audiences. $15. (323) 913-5988. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

*

Slapstick ‘Wife’ shares its pain

When a fed-up police inspector in “Run for Your Wife” finally declared, “I’m not listening to this anymore!” and stormed off the stage, I could really feel his pain. Unfortunately, it was the only sympathetic moment to be found in Ray Cooney’s farce about a London cab driver frantically trying to conceal his bigamous double life from his wives after an accident lands him in hospital.

If you transpose Arthur Miller’s similarly themed comedy, “The Ride Down Mt. Morgan,” to an English working-class setting, give it a lobotomy, mangle the accents and replace any credible human behavior with labored slapstick, you’ll end up with something like this relentlessly incoherent mess.

Bent on salvaging his situation through any possible deception, our smarmy, utterly unapologetic hero, John Smith (Greg C. James), bounces between his homes, concocting increasingly elaborate and unbelievable cover stories with his unemployed neighbor, Stanley (Terik Guindy). John’s perpetual embarrassed toothy grimace suggests he’s gambled not only on flaunting the conventions of monogamy but on keeping his tetanus shots current and has lost on both counts.

John and Stanley’s gambles include pretending to be gay (abetted by a flamboyant neighbor played with over-the-top poofery by Dan Howard). A pair of police inspectors (West Cummings, Craig Christman) enlisted by the respective wives to find their missing husband seem to be vying for most unconvincing accent, but they have plenty of competition from the rest of the cast.

A bright exception is Amber Lopez’s ditzy sexpot turn as wife No. 2. Although Michelle Correa’s wife No. 1 isn’t as fully realized, she delivers some wickedly venomous barbs when the plot starts unraveling. The piece doesn’t exactly end; it sputters to a merciful halt at an arbitrary point. To paraphrase a beat from Henny Youngman: “Take this ‘Wife.’ Please.”

-- P.B.

“Run for Your Wife,” Stella Adler Theatre, second floor, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 15. $15. (323) 993-9775. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.