O.C. THEATER REVIEW : Mission Accomplished in Sensitive Staging : New Ensemble’s production of ‘Elephant Man’ displays skillful dramatic instincts, also good use of troubled GroveShakespeare venue.

With the future of GroveShakespeare so uncertain, it’s hard to know what, if any, shows will be staged at the troupe’s Gem Theatre or Festival Amphitheatre. If the troupe can’t get it together, it would make sense for the powers that be to keep making the venues available to other local groups--such as the fledgling, Orange-based New Mission Ensemble, whose version of “The Elephant Man” opened at the Gem last weekend.

It was a quality debut for the ensemble, which features several graduates of the Professional Actors Conservatory, a training ground mostly for students at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana. Staging Bernard Pomerance’s sad but ultimately uplifting play, the ensemble displayed both skill and sensitive dramatic instincts.

The play--a success on Broadway that went on to inspire a movie by David Lynch in 1980--is most compelling during the first act. We’re introduced to severely deformed John Merrick, who is enduring a hellish life as a carnival freak but who, we learn later, carries dignity and an artist’s soul under his hideous surface.

Saving grace, of a sort, arrives when Merrick is discovered by Frederick Treves, an enterprising surgeon who is equal parts kindness and ambition.

*

Director Michael Ambrosio lets these scenes play out naturally with gentle, well-pitched control. Everyone apparently realizes that Merrick’s story is emotional enough already and that no one has to meddle with it via splashy performances.

Unfortunately, Pomerance’s second act is flawed and there’s not much Ambrosio and the cast can do about it. Merrick’s rehabilitation--which infuses him with a nobility that transcends almost everyone around him--is a steady focus, but peripheral side plots (the hospital’s financial peril, Treves’ attraction to an actress who visits Merrick) are vague and unresolved. Much of the energy, so carefully generated in the first act, is sapped.

Still, this production can move you, ‘and much of its power comes from Vajdon Sohaili’s performance as Merrick. The actor tilts his head and twists his body sharply to suggest the character’s disability, all the while trying to interpret his humanity in an honest performance that exposes grief but does not exploit it.

*

Davida Bourland also is strong as Mrs. Kendal, the vivacious actress who brings a taste of erotic longing into Merrick’s life. Bourland is vivacious but also displays an edge that reveals Mrs. Kendal’s ambiguous feelings toward her position in Merrick’s small world.

As Treves, Damon Carr slips occasionally. He obviously has a grasp of the contradictory nature of Treves’ pact with Merrick, but conveying it, he sometimes veers from the staging’s overall-sophisticated tone.

* “The Elephant Man,” Gem Theatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. Fridays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Aug. 14 at 2 p.m. Ends Aug. 14. $8--$12. (714) 636-5918. Running time: 2 hours.

Damon Carr: Frederick Treves and policeman

Dan Cole: Carr Gomm and conductor

Jim Rice: Ross and conductor

Vajdon Sohaili: John Merrick

Davida Bourland: Mrs. Kendal and pinhead

Karan Thies: Countess and pinhead

Mark Drake: Lord John, Bishop Walsham How and hospital porter

Michael Ambrosio: Snork

A New Mission Ensemble production. Written by Bernard Pomerance. Directed by Michael Ambrosio. Set by Lisa Jacobs. Lighting by Amy E. Masgai. Costumes by Laura Deremer. Original music by Alvaro Garcia.