‘Yearnings’ fulfilled by universal truths

Headstrong romance is the traditional province of hot-blooded youth, which makes the budding late-in-life adulterous attraction between two shy Japanese Americans in “Yearnings” all the more surprising -- to themselves most of all.

In Sachi Oyama’s understated, nicely performed two-actor play at West L.A.’s ITA Stage, time and circumstances are very much against John (Shaun Shimoda) and Fumi (Emily Kuroda), two married but unfulfilled acquaintances who meet on holidays to leave gifts at the adjacent graves of their respective parents.

Events in this bittersweet drama remain resolutely grounded in mundane -- sometimes too humdrum -- realities that preclude momentous dramatic eruptions. John is an IRS auditor and amateur horticulturist whose boyhood dreams of roller-derby stardom were the closest he ever came to an adventurous life. The highlight of aspiring writer Fumi’s career is getting a letter published in the newspaper.

In addition to their marital responsibilities, both are caught between traditional strict behavioral codes and the American culture they were born into. When John presents Fumi with a special cucumber he grew in winter -- “against all laws of nature and sunlight and heat” -- she can’t accept his too personal gift, realizing it symbolizes their dangerous romance.

Darrell Kunitomi’s sensitive direction, however, finds more here than a study in culture clash. Delicately nuanced performances from Shimoda and Kuroda (in multiple roles) mine universal truths about loneliness and aging from their characters’ ordinary experiences. John and Fumi persevere in their awkward, fumbling relationship because they must, because to do otherwise would be to surrender to the extinction already nipping at their heels. By illuminating the impulses that drive them, the piece moves us to understanding rather than judgment.

-- Philip Brandes

“Yearnings,” ITA Stage, 10015 Venice Blvd., West Los Angeles. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Aug. 31. $15. (310) 822-6861. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

*

‘A Grand Night’ for classic songs

Woodland Hills is alive with the sound of music in “A Grand Night for Singing” at the West Valley Playhouse. Walter Bobbie’s 1993 celebration of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II receives an unpretentious revival that has the fizzy zeal of a theater camp talent show.

“Singing” was the first revue built around Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers, with Bobbie echoing the legendary team’s working pattern of words first, then music, to arrive at his fluctuating romantic scenario.

This was criticized at “Singing’s” Roundabout Theatre premiere, with observers bemoaning the notion of reworking Rodgers and Hammerstein’s narrative-linked compositions into a free-form cabaret setting.

Yet the conceit, which houses some of the finest theater songs ever written, proves effective here. Director and co-choreographer Noel Britton’s avid cast radiates unassuming warmth that mostly offsets the variable tone and dramatic context.

In the central pairing, Jeremy Fillinger possesses a robust tenor and vivid sensitivity, while Leslie Channon surmounts her indeterminate soprano with ample charm, recalling the young Marian Mercer.

Co-choreographer Robert R. Long II is engaging, as is Sean French’s Bobby Darin-flavored baritone. Britton’s sweet-and-sour quality is delightful, hilarious in tandem with Farley Cadena, a pint-sized morph of Gloria DeHaven and Nancy Walker.

Not everything matches the Swingle Singers-styled “Honey Bun” or Channon’s kittenish “It’s Me” or Fillinger’s heart-tugging “Love Look Away.” But the cast nails original arranger Fred Wells’ lush choral charts, receiving expert support from musical director Patricia Hannifan and a fine band.

The designs are solid, with Victoria Profitt’s set and Danny Truxaw’s lighting especially serviceable, which sums up this pleasantly staged, richly melodic summer diversion.

-- David C. Nichols

“A Grand Night for Singing,” West Valley Playhouse, 7242 Owensmouth Ave., Canoga Park. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends Aug. 31. $18-$20. (818) 884-1907. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

*

Jagged ‘Glass’ needs polishing

“Attraction does not make a marriage.... Attraction only makes for romance, courting and forgettable one-night stands. But not a marriage.” This crystallizes “Stained Glass Ugly,” Qui Nguyen’s dark comic examination of a disjointed prenuptial couple at the NoHo Actor’s Studio.

“Stained Glass” marks the flagship production by the West Coast branch of Vampire Cowboys, the first franchised theater troupe in the nation, with outlets in Manhattan and now L.A. Their community-building goals incorporate local artists and musicians for pre-show entertainment (guitar duo Courtney Chambers and Chris Perez at the reviewed performance).

Nguyen’s asymmetrical saga covers the week before ambivalent Madison Misco (Allison Lizzi) and disfigured Adam Mann (Colter Allison) tie the knot, gradually showing how they arrived at this life passage. Ricocheting among hieratic monologues, frazzled flashbacks and multiple-choice versions of pivotal occurrences, Nguyen forms a sort of Rorschach narrative, culminating in ironic inversion.

Allison and Lizzi are capable actors, excoriating each other with notable attunement. Director Rex Austin Barrow places and paces them to mirror each other’s revelations and contradictions.

However, Nguyen’s ambitious writing suffers from stylistic excess and repetitions of point. The reversals would have more impact in a single act, and the symbols and surrealist techniques collide, creating more noise than nuance. Like Adam’s disfigurement, unsubtle as metaphor and distracting as plot element, demonstrating the awkward way in which novelistic introspection abuts sitcom satire.

Such discrepancies earmark this jagged piece of “Stained Glass” as a promising workshop entry in need of further revisions and serious editing.

-- D.C.N.

“Stained Glass Ugly,” NoHo Actor’s Studio, 5215 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 17. Mature audiences. $15. (323) 460-6440. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Sonic ramble in search of a show

Sonic designers, psychotropic abusers and the visually impaired may well appreciate “ZHX/Soundscape,” now clucking, buzzing and humming its way around the Hothouse in North Hollywood.

In concept, this experiment in wordless improvisation by the resident Spontaneous Theater Conservatory sounds intriguing: Twelve actors, turned loose in a darkened semi-arena playing area, use only their interactive instincts and the audience’s ambient noises to shape an ever-shifting theatrical environs.

In execution, however, “ZHX/Soundscape” is entirely another inanimate matter.

Director and company co-founder Rob Adler’s program notes allude to Viola Spolin’s theater games, synesthesia, Dianne Ackerman’s “A Natural History of the Senses” and his own personal connections to hearing loss.

One respects the attempt to create a new form, but from the pass-the-sound-ball warm-up through the vocal vortex that follows, “ZHX/Soundscape” is one perplexing rehearsal room ramble in the dark.

Whatever connective tissue exists resembles James Thurber’s mechanical noises in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” by way of a THX movie ad. The sporadic words and phrases, although generating some chuckles, seem like cheating, given the concept’s boundaries.

The actors are resourceful and hard-working, gifted at vocalizing and group delivery. Taken as a technical display, the depth of field achieved by their aural meanderings is impressive, and obviously any performance will be its own self-circumscribed experience. Devotees of sensory deprivation tanks and the sound-effects section of record stores are hereby alerted.

-- D.C.N.

“ZHX/Soundscape,” the Hothouse, 4934 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 6. $10. (323) 394-8307. Running time: 45 minutes.

*

Williams molders at ‘Vieux Carre’

Reasons abound why Tennessee Williams’ sprawling, unfocused “Vieux Carre” is rarely staged, but even this problematic late-career drama has more to offer than Trade City Productions’ ambitious but ill-conceived and woefully miscast revival at the Ivy Substation might suggest.

Written in 1977, when Williams was well past the peak of his powers, “Vieux Carre” revisits the author’s arrival and first adventures in New Orleans’ French Quarter during the late 1930s. Williams had tapped these seminal experiences with greater success in earlier works -- and some familiar characters and themes echo throughout the creaky confines of the dilapidated boarding house and its nine low-life residents.

Although the resulting slice-of-life sketches lack a unity of purpose, they feature some fine passages of Williams’ eloquent, poetic dialogue. Unfortunately, under Reza Safai’s direction the production shows little facility with the all-important cadences and sensibilities of the language.

The least adept performers in this regard are the characters intended to be most sympathetic. The young writer who serves as Williams’ alter ego (Christian Barillas) rarely navigates his lines without inappropriate faltering, which wrecks their rhythm. Hollace Starr conveys little sense of the emotional shadings in her reading as the pretty but desperately ill lodger who tries to obliterate her genteel Northern upbringing in the arms of a self-absorbed strip joint barker, Tye (Robert Porch). The physical chemistry between them is more successful, but not enough to overcome the delivery problem.

The most technically accomplished performances are Nadya Starr as the shrill busybody landlady, Mrs. Wire, who ambushes her lodgers in their nocturnal comings and goings from her cot in the lobby, and Mickey Cottrell as the consumptive homosexual painter Nightingale. Yet even here, the interpretations fixate on the lurid and grotesque -- Wire’s sadistic manipulation, Nightingale’s debauchery -- without evoking Williams’ equally important humanity and compassion, reducing the whole effort to little more than a freak show.

-- P.B.

“Vieux Carre,” Ivy Substation, 9700 Venice Blvd., Culver City. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m.. Ends Aug. 30. $15. (310) 720-5981. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.