STAGE REVIEW : No-Nonsense Treatment for ‘Nuts’ in Irvine

IRVINE —  There is nothing padded about the Irvine Community Theater’s production of “Nuts.”

Director Lenore Stjerne has pared the set down to essentials: a few institutional chairs, small white tables, two flags. The vertical striping of the wooden wall adds to the Spartan effect. The stage looks as though the protagonists don’t expect to be there for long.

But the action is hardly perfunctory. Over the course of two compelling acts, Tom Topor’s drama touches on murder, prostitution, insanity and child molestation. And if that isn’t enough, we also witness the wrenching effects of divorce on a child and legal wranglings to define and deny insanity. Hardy fare for a theater in the middle of bucolic Turtle Rock.

Claudia (Cindy Hogan) is accused of murdering one of the clients she hustled as a prostitute. A sanity hearing is held in the psychiatric ward of Bellevue to determine whether she is competent to stand trial.

The deck is stacked overwhelmingly against her: the hapless professional witness, Dr. Rosenthal (Richard Huisman), feels that she is a threat to herself and society; her parents, Arthur and Rose Kirk (Joe Abrams and Ruth Cameron), want her treated because “they love her so.” Even her attorney, Aaron Levinsky (Lee Clark), has dubious allegiances, as he is clearly defending her for the money. Her only friend is the bailiff, Officer Hagerty (Reed Bennett).

Hogan is electric as a troubled but--as will be seen--hardly crazy woman struggling to assert her sanity. As she fidgets in her chair, she bristles, wide-eyed, ready to fight like a cat that has been startled in the night. As Dist. Atty. Franklin MacMillan, Philip Seitz is appropriately sincere-but-smarmy. Abrams and Cameron are American Gothic stolid, middle-class earnest, genuinely unable to understand why their daughter would stoop to such depths of depravity. Particularly moving are Cameron’s “Where did we go wrong?” spiel and Abrams’ inadvertent admission of stepdaughter-fondling.

The ending is unexpected. Perhaps if Jack Reule, who plays Judge Murdoch, had been a bit more authoritative, his ruling would have been even more surprising.

‘NUTS’

An Irvine Community Theater production of the Tom Topor drama. Directed by Lenore Stjerne. With Cindy Hogan, Lee Clark, Philip Seitz, Ruth Cameron, Joe Abrams, Richard Huisman, Jack Reule, Reed Bennett and Joann Urban. Stage manager: Joann Urban. Sound and lights: Todd Kulczyk. Continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through March 2, with one Sunday matinee, Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. At the Turtle Rock Community Park auditorium, Turtle Rock Drive at Sunnyhill, Irvine. Tickets: $5 and $4. (714) 857-5496.