‘Moscow-Petushki’ an Engrossing Show

If any production proves that less is more, it’s the riveting one-man show “Moscow-Petushki,” from Theatre Kana of Poland, currently playing in repertory with “The Night,” at the Odyssey Theatre. With minimal props and lighting, director and stage designer Zygmunt Duczynski has given magical life to Venedict Erofeyev’s novel of the same name.

Jacek Zawadzki plays a 40-year-old man, searching for the Kremlin in a drunken stupor and wishing to be on board the train from Moscow to Petushki. He has recently been “removed from the position of foreman” of an “inappropriate system of individual diagrams” that tracks the alcoholic consumption of various workers.

In the opening scene, a bare light bulb dimly shines, forcing us to squint at a hard-to-see Zawadzki, who must fight against the darkness that embraces him. There also is a wonderfully realized scene where Zawadzki dances in grief, his face lit only by a single candle set in an open suitcase.

With his husky voice and fluid physicality, Zawadzki gives an intense articulation of one man’s grief filtered through an alcoholic haze, half-praising the various types of vodka in a delirium that fuses fragmented memories into wild yet mysterious ramblings.

* “Moscow-Petushki,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. English: Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends Jan. 17. Polish: Tuesday, 8 p.m. $18.50-$22.50. (310) 477-2055. Also at Orange County Museum of Art, 850 Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. Feb. 2, 2 p.m. $8-$10. (714) 759-1122, Ext. 204. Running time: 1 hour.