THEATER REVIEW : Idealism Gets Reality Check in ‘Tragedy’ : A young teacher encounters cynicism and frustration as he tries to reverse the cycle of poverty and violence in a New York barrio.

A hard-hitting dynamo of a play, “Stand-Up Tragedy” ricochets around the PCPA Theaterfest stage with the same electricity powering the high-tension activities of its New York barrio setting--rap music, basketball and street violence.

A minimal set adorned with graffiti, break dancing and, on occasion, spilled blood, is all the backdrop the talented 12-member ensemble needs to evoke Bill Cain’s harrowing portrait of inner-city youth trapped in an endless cycle of poverty, crime and premature death.

But somewhere in the midst of all the squandered possibilities, hopes Tom Griffin (Ron Heneghan), an idealistic young teacher newly arrived at a Catholic all-boy’s high school, there’s still a chance to make a difference by turning some lives around.

Not likely, counters the school principal, a cynical priest (Charlie Bachmann) who’s lost much of his faith struggling with problems that stubbornly resist solutions. Father Larkin has learned the hard way not to tamper with the local ecology.

It’s a lesson Griffin sets out to disprove, by taking a personal interest in Lee Cortez (Gendell Hernandez), a gifted young artist trapped in a squalid family setting.

This is the familiar plot territory of many a stirring humanistic drama--from “The Blackboard Jungle” to “Stand and Deliver”--but Cain’s version, steeped in his personal experience as a teacher in New York’s Lower East Side, lacks the self-congratulatory tone and upbeat assurance of an inevitable happy resolution.

Too often, this play insists, attempts to intervene only makes things infinitely worse. Griffin’s offer of sanctuary to the troubled Lee proves disastrous because it’s only temporary: For the boy, being sent back to the suffocating embrace of an abusive, alcoholic mother and a heroin addict brother is cruel punishment after he’s had a taste of healthier family life.

In a chilling reprisal that embodies his sense of betrayal, Lee destroys a painting he’s just given Griffin, saying, “I wanted to give you something beautiful and then take it away.”

There are many such moments in this well-constructed piece, exchanges that crystallize the inner processes that perpetuate the sense of hopelessness.

The strikingly original presentational style filters out extraneous details--ironic touches such as the national anthem abbreviated to just its first and last lines--that are perfectly calibrated to a generation of channel surfers.

Director Paul Barnes retains the abstract confrontational format that distinguished the piece in its 1989 staging at the Mark Taper Forum, with an abundance of raucous energy, outrageous humor and frank vocabulary.

Ironically, some of the strongest language comes from the anguished Father Larkin, whose clear-sighted commentary sustains the play’s theological underpinnings as he confronts the abject failure of well-intentioned social reforms.

For these desperate youths, the only thing worse than the status quo would be to turn our backs on them. Yet that’s precisely the direction in which we seem headed.

Details

* WHAT: “Stand-Up Tragedy.”

* WHEN: Through Jan. 29, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8, Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays at 2 p.m.

* WHERE: Allan Hancock College Severson Theatre, 800 S. College Drive, Santa Maria.

* HOW MUCH: $12-$18.

* FYI: For reservations or further information, call (800) 549-PCPA.