Dickens is given a breezy makeover

Dickens’ shortest and arguably most humorless work, “Hard Times” is a hard nut to crack. Intrinsically didactic and self righteous in tone, the piece tackles the shortcomings of the social utilitarianism prevalent in its day, as well as the evils of the Industrial Revolution and the inequities of the era’s harsh divorce laws -- this, not coincidentally, at a time when Dickens’ own marriage was failing.

In his staging at the Evidence Room -- a cavernous space well suited to Dickens’ expansive concerns -- director/adaptor Bart DeLorenzo does a heroic job dramatizing what Dickens’ eminent contemporary, Thomas Macaulay, dismissed as “sullen socialism.” DeLorenzo retains Dickens’ language but jettisons high stage diction for more contemporary American speech -- a surprisingly successful tactic that humanizes Dickens’ famously overblown characters.

As is typical with Evidence Room productions, design elements are superb, particularly John Zalewski’s wonderfully organic sound. Jason Adams and Alicia Hoge’s set -- a series of capacious raised platforms -- evokes the disparity of the grimy mill town in which the story is set, from teeming factory tenement to magnate’s mansion.

The production features a baker’s dozen of actors -- for the most part a lucky 13. Particularly effective is Ames Ingham as Louisa Gradgrind, the unfortunate young woman who falls victim to her ideologue father’s failed social experiment. Also excellent is Lisa Black as the scheming and jealous-hearted Mrs. Sparsit. A couple of the performances are exaggerated to an unfortunately splenetic degree. Still, for most of this accomplished and entertaining production, DeLorenzo spurs the slow coach of Dickens’ problematic plot to a brisk gallop.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Hard Times,” Evidence Room, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends June 6. $15-$20. (213) 381-7118. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.

*

A Thanksgiving with a twist

Timing is everything as Roger Mathey’s atmospheric, eerily paced staging transforms a derivative Pinter-esque homecoming into a uniquely unsettling experience in “The House of Yes” at Hollywood’s Theatre/Theater.

In Wendy MacLeod’s sharp-edged play about a Thanksgiving family gathering of well-to-do Washingtonians, the veneer of normality is quickly shed, exposing a seething Freudian cesspool of incest and potentially homicidal obsession. This household’s dangerous mental currents are all-too-familiar waters for elder son Marty (Steven O’Brien), returning home after a long absence with his prudish working-class fiancee, Lesley (Clare Jacoby), in tow. Quickly lapsing into old habits, Marty resumes psychosexual games reenacting the JFK assassination with his manic sister, Jackie-O (Janna Giacoppo, in a creepily effective performance).

As naive Lesley tries to cope with this unsuspected side to her mate, she also has to fend off relentless advances by Marty’s younger brother (John Patrick Wells) and battle the nasty machinations of her dysfunctional prospective mother-in-law (Cherie Bloomquist), who sums up her philosophy of child-rearing as “people raise cattle; children just happen.”

Director Mathey’s approach to the material seems to be “if you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Leapfrogging the classic Pinter pause, he leverages the backdrop of storm-induced power failures to insert a blackout on virtually every beat, with actors blowing out the candles they’re holding, only to reappear in a different position to continue their dialogue -- a process that more than doubles the running time. The conceit seems mannered at first, but the cumulative effect is a hypnotic distortion of time weirdly appropriate to the material. It also provides opportunities for the actors to put unexpectedly rich, suggestive spins on their lines. (An alternate cast performs on Sunday evenings).

-- Philip Brandes

“House of Yes,” Theatre/Theater, 6425 Hollywood Blvd., fourth floor, Hollywood. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 4 and 7 p.m. Ends June 6. $15. (310) 930-7254. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

*

Seven writers convene at MET

Writers are the entertainment world’s fall guys. When shows stumble, they often are saddled with the blame. When projects succeed, they don’t always receive the credit they’re due. So it’s refreshing to see the MET Theatre tip its hat to these artists in “7 MET Shorts,” a collection of short new plays by writers associated with the company over the course of its 30 years.

In one way or another, the pieces all reflect on the state of human affairs, forever prone to miscommunication and misconnection. This confluence of theme -- from a list of writers that includes Beth Henley and Sam Shepard -- lends the project an added sense of purpose.

The tone is set in Joshua Rebell’s “Black Tie Affairs” when the statement “we are a generation of nonbelievers” issues from a table of single, imperfectly paired thirtysomethings who are gloomily surveying the scene at a friend’s wedding. This lack of faith in human interconnectedness then echoes most urgently in Drew Brody’s “Chess,” as a mother tries to hammer some sense into the son who gives up too easily on his autistic daughter; L. Flint Esquerra’s “Once,” a wordless, Beckettian piece about a love affair that leaves a man empty-handed; and Brody’s adaptation of the Shepard story “It Wasn’t Proust,” in which a married couple’s below-the-surface feelings surge into view.

Deft writing is matched by spot-on acting and sharp directing (the latter by Lisa James, Stephanie Shroyer, Shawn Tolleson and Esquerra). Basic truths are plumbed in every piece, but especially in the scorching heat of the exchange between Jenny O’Hara and Matthew Glave as the mother and son in “Chess,” directed by James. For comedy shaded with pathos, no one surpasses Kristen Lowman as a buttoned-up woman quietly crying for help in Tom Grimes’ “Rehearsal” and as a tightly cinched wife yearning for release in Henley’s “Tight Pants.”

Susan Emshwiller’s “Juan and Sooz,” a study of equality in 1920s Los Angeles, rounds out the bill.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“7 MET Shorts,” MET Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., L.A. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends May 19. $20. (323) 957-1152. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

*

‘Ribbentrop’ unmasks actor

Before Norman Hudis wrote the “Carry On” comedies and many television scripts, he was a publicist for J. Arthur Rank’s famed Islington Studios. Here he encountered British lodestar Eric Portman.

Portman, a box-office draw and stage fave after his Nazi villain in “The 49th Parallel,” was an unrepentant bigot and a closeted homosexual. These aspects dominate Hudis’ “Dinner With Ribbentrop,” now premiering at the Rude Guerrilla Theatre.

It is 1951, in Portman’s London dressing room between performances of his latest hit. Assistant Tommy (Norman Wilson) struggles to keep his employer from learning of the death of his former lover. Such news will shatter Portman (Steven Parker) even more than the arrival of ex-colleague Dennis (Keith Bennett), who has his own secret.

When Jewish producer Theo Aaronson (Vince Campbell) arrives to offer a plum movie role, Portman’s inadvertent discovery spurs an anti-Semitic outburst. After Portman faces the dead man’s mother (Sally Norton), Aaronson’s return sparks an ethical battle disguised as negotiations.

Hudis understands structural motivation and character, and he certainly knows this milieu. Unfortunately, his ambitious text vacillates between static polemic and acrid quips.

Despite smart designs, director Sharyn Case’s staging permits her tireless crew inscrutable pauses and errant, distracting dialects. Parker’s innate sensitivity seems closer to Leslie Howard than to Portman, though he and Campbell valiantly attack the talky climax. Backstage buffs, Anglophiles and ACLU members may be intrigued, but this murky stew needs revised ingredients.

-- David C. Nichols

“Dinner With Ribbentrop,” Rude Guerrilla Theatre, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Also May 20, 8 p.m. Ends May 23. Mature audiences. $12-$15. (714) 547-4688. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.

*

Minghella the playwright

Before he was an A-list Hollywood writer and director (“Cold Mountain,” “The English Patient”), Anthony Minghella was a well-regarded playwright. An early work, the modestly scaled female bonding story “Whale Music,” is being presented at the Coronet Theatre by Erinys Productions, a San Francisco-based women’s theater company.

The play is set in 1980 on Minghella’s native Isle of Wight, where young protagonist Caroline (Aimee Barile) has moved to weather an unplanned pregnancy. The season is, appropriately, winter, and the storm-swept Caroline, frozen out by the men in her life and her own repressive parents, rents a room from promiscuous welfare recipient Stella (Lia Johnson). Caroline is upper crust, Stella distinctly bottom drawer, but in Minghella’s warm and fuzzy microcosm, that’s no barrier to a strong attachment.

As the pregnancy progresses, Caroline hobnobs with other supportive gal pals, including her old school chum Fran (Rajni Kareer, ably filling in for Lindsay Frame on the night reviewed), Caroline’s unrequited lesbian admirer Kate (Alena Bethune) and Kate’s new flame D (Tara Platt).

The show features interstitial Joni Mitchell music and a gifted cast, including Mary-Margaret Humes as Caroline’s loving but estranged mother. With the exception of Humes, whose botched accent detracts from her otherwise fine performance, the actors handle their demanding British dialects like natives.

Minghella’s self-conscious feminism has not worn well, and director Arika Lisanne Mittman makes some strange choices, like placing her performers behind an occluding screen for certain key scenes. Nonetheless, the play evokes keen nostalgia without obvious histrionics -- and that is no small accomplishment.

-- F.K.F.

“Whale Music,” Coronet Theatre, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends May 9. $20. (866) 384-3060 Running time: 2 hours.

*

The unmaking of a president

A presidential parable about the human toll of armed conflict, “The War Room” at the McCadden Place Theatre aches with heartfelt appreciation and support for U.S. soldiers who put their lives in harm’s way. Unfortunately, the show’s obvious sincerity and commitment can’t mitigate the clumsiness with which writer-director Allen Shuman’s script oversimplifies complex issues and strains credibility beyond all limits.

Set in an alternate-universe White House in early 2003, the drama revolves around President Doyle (Henry LeBlanc), a Clintonesque flawed character trying to cope with an imminent nuclear threat from a rogue Middle East nation.

Having avoided military service, the philandering, self-centered Doyle is ill-prepared to deal with the crisis. Fortunately, a visitation from the ghost of his war hero brother (Dean Purvis) transports them to the jungles of the Vietnam War, where the president finds personal redemption amid a cacophony of machine gun fire, mortar shells and grenades (this may not be the best war-themed drama to come down the pike, but it’s certainly one of the loudest).

The show’s credibility problem isn’t with its “Twilight Zone” device but with the surrounding scenes intended to show political reality. Among the improbabilities we’re asked to swallow are the president taking time out from a global crisis to accommodate White House tours from distant relatives, his no-nonsense national security advisor (Kristin Carey) whining interminably about the Cabinet “boy’s club” and the scary Rumsfeldian Defense secretary (Frank Ashmore) indulging in harassment and maniacal outbursts. Not that raw human emotions don’t enter into historical decision-making, but the play misses the crucial process by which they’re carefully rationalized and elevated into lofty statements of policy.

-- P.B.

“The War Room,” McCadden Place Theatre, 1157 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends May 23. $20. (323) 878-0773. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.