Emotion Powers Songs of ‘No Miracle’

The opening chords of “No Miracle: A Consolation” send a prickling sensation up the back of the neck. It’s the feeling that comes from pure emotion, purely expressed--and it lasts until the final curtain call.

Philip Littell and his longtime collaborator, Eliot Douglass, have been workshopping their AIDS song cycle for more than a decade now. A collection of original songs that brilliantly illuminate the human toll of the AIDS epidemic, the show soars to new heights of artistry in its present production at Playwrights’ Arena.

Littell, who wrote all of the lyrics and also directs, has scaled down the cast since the show was at Highways in 1994. Holdovers from that production include Littell himself, Douglass--who composed much of the music, and who provides wonderful piano accompaniment throughout--and the dulcet-voiced Michael Bonnabel, whose tour-de-force tenor remains a standout. Sultry-voiced newcomer Inara George beautifully rounds out this tight-knit ensemble.

Littell’s staging is simplicity itself, a deceptively slight framework that amply supports this sometimes humorous, always wrenching material. From the richly sarcastic “He Never Told Me” to the elegiac lullaby “Early Christmas,” the songs span the gamut from sophisticated urbanity to the most elemental human verities. The real miracle in “No Miracle” is the power with which it salutes the resilience of the human spirit, which can endure untold loss with compassion and humor.

* “No Miracle: A Consolation,” Playwrights’ Arena, 5262 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. Mondays-Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 16. $10. (213) 658-4010. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.