Is West way best with foreign aid?

The title of “The God Botherers” at the Furious Theatre Company refers to those who forcibly impose their beliefs on others. As such, Richard Bean’s 2003 London hit is a topical take on foreign aid workers in a chaotic Third World nation.

The setting is the fictional African country of Tambia, whose population is either Muslim or Christian, though other sects persist. The plot concerns NGO worker Laura (Sara Hennessy), who arrives at the rustic outpost -- vividly realized by designer Shawn Lee -- armed with Cosmo magazine and good intentions. “I’m here,” she writes her best friend in one of many epistolary monologues. “Everything is so

Jaded boss Keith (Robert Pescovitz) sets Laura straight: “The borders don’t make any sense, there’s no rule of law, no running water.... The last war’s [ruined] everything and the next war will [ruin] everything else.”

This clashing pair connects with two locals: Monday (Tony Tambi), Laura’s bodyguard, a symbol of cultural division down to his clothes; and burka-clad Ibrahima (Reena Dutt), whose husband will kill her if she delivers another girl.

Damaso Rodriguez stages this West Coast premiere with typical proficiency. The designs of Christie Wright (lighting), Doug Newell (sound) and Melissa Teoh (costumes) are up to Lee’s fine work. The eager cast dives in, although Tambi and Dutt aren’t always intelligible.

Although Bean raises questions about church and state, the wisdom of Westernization and more, his script awkwardly combines un-PC sitcom and stark drama. This, along with the pace-halting direct address, obscures the core issues. Irreverent viewers may revel, but “God Botherers” finally bothered me for the wrong reasons.

-- David C. Nichols

“The God Botherers,” Balcony Theatre Upstairs at the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 24. Mature audiences. $15 and $24. (626) 356-7529. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

*

Patience rewarded when shopping for meaning at ‘Mall’

Many ambitious plays -- particularly those with Something Important to Say -- start off promisingly and fall apart in second acts that labor to make sure we’ve got it. Peter Sagal’s strange, often smart comedy/drama “Mall America,” about the aftermath of a senseless shooting spree at the title destination, does exactly the reverse.

A queasy first act sets up the uncommon trajectory of Allison (Jane McPherson), a survivor of the shooting who instinctively cradled a 10-year-old victim (Kyle Kaplan) as he died. Understandably touchy, she snaps at her well-meaning husband (Thomas Crawford) and resists the prodding of a detective (Damon Standifer) and a therapist (Stuart McLean).

She pays a visit to the boy’s dad (James Michael White) and finds him so distraught that he has resorted to shattered gallows humor.

Then the dead kid himself shows up, playing ghostly gadfly to her guilty bystander. Couldn’t she, shouldn’t she have done something to stop the shooter (Rob Elk), the boy wonders pointedly? And could she please pass the remote? By the time she relocates to a condo to hang out with this precociously snarky apparition, and starts taking shooting lessons from a matter-of-fact military-styled instructor (David St. James), “Mall America” clicks into its own dark-comic rhythm.

Sagal occasionally overreaches in his critique of random violence and obsessive security, but his tetchy tone saves him from bathos. Watch, for instance, how cleanly and quickly he drains the syrup from Allison’s abortive fling with a nebbishy court security guard (David Cheaney).

Director Matt Kirkwood, using a sleek, modular design (scrim-based set by Lew Abramson, expertly lighted by Max Pierson), keeps the show light on its feet and gets killer turns from his cast -- particularly Kaplan and McPherson, whose weirdly unruffled performance, like the play, starts off almost perversely blank but makes a kind of lovely, cracked sense by the end.

-- Rob Kendt

“Mall America,” Theatre Neo at the Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends May 15. $20. (323) 769-5858 or at www.theatreneo.com. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Light from an unexpected source

Len Jenkin’s fascinating if inchoate 1984 play “My Uncle Sam” loosely sets a surreal detective story within a prosaic memory-play frame. It’s a shape-shifting picaresque with tenuous dramatic grip, but director Joshua Moyse’s new production gives it a stunningly clear, fluid style, with a monochrome set haunted by Jason Mullen’s stark side-lighting and animated by Rachel Eberhard’s sharply demarcated period costumes.

The tightly focused setting often lends this rough diamond a genuine gem-like gleam. Jenkin begins and ends the play with a narrator (Paul Plunkett) recalling his childhood awe for his Uncle Sam (Joe Jordan), a retired novelties salesman who spent his waning years resolutely alone in a Pittsburgh hotel. These scenes point us in a conventionally wistful direction, with the ramrod Jordan, though barely in his 30s, confidently evoking age and regret.

The play then whiplashes into an increasingly fanciful tall-tale version of Sam’s young manhood amid a noirish nightscape of hoods, molls and other shady characters. It follows young Sam (laconic Ben Cubbedge) on a fool’s errand at the behest of his purported fiancee, dance-hall hostess Lila (sleek Amanda Decker) -- a search for a missing person that soon makes Sam the true absentee.

Moyse’s committed cast throws itself into this shaggy-dog fantasy with engaging verve. Not all the performers are quite on point with Jenkin’s wide-ranging voice, which aims for a pulp-poetic hybrid of sales pitch and home truth, and the play has speculative codas rather than a satisfying conclusion. But like the luminous crucifix Sam hawks with a convincing patter, “My Uncle Sam” is a seemingly trifling conjurer’s trick with a resilient glow.

-- R. K.

“My Uncle Sam,” Sacred Fools Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays (no performance Apr. 1). Ends Apr. 30. $20. (310) 281-8837 or at www.sacredfools.org. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

Thinking, feeling in ‘Arcadia’

Carnal desire fuels the ornate geometry of Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia.” This 1993 comedy, which crosses two centuries on an English estate, is a delicate masterwork of lofty ideas and human responses.

Set in a single room overlooking the Sidley Park gardens, “Arcadia” begins in 1809, as Septimus Hodge (Brian Silverman), a tutor, spars with 13-year-old Thomasina Coverly (Carlita Penaherrera), a math prodigy. He, preoccupied with his cuckoldry of poet Ezra Chater (Mathew Herman), notes only her brilliance. Meanwhile, Thomasina’s mother (Katharine Phillips Moser) argues aesthetics with landscaper Noakes (D. Ewing Woodruff).

We jump to the present. Author Hannah Jarvis (Naomi DeLucco) researches the estate, trying to identify a mysterious hermit of local legend. Fatuous Bernard Nightingale (Mark Salamon), a rival historian, claims that Lord Byron shot Chater at Sidley Park. Their rancor engages the modern Coverlys. Scientist Valentine (Matt Bennett) finds his algorithms dovetail with Thomasina’s discoveries. Fulsome Chloe (Erica Sullivan) has eyes for Bernard. Mute Gus (Dan Mott) observes everything with intensity.

Thereafter, “Arcadia” arcs between eras in a heady blend of fractal theory, academic mystery and romantic elegy. The two periods join at the climax, tying loose ends with a poignant waltz across time.

Director Lisa Guzman and her Vox Humana forces use the jewel box Century City Playhouse with notable skill. Alana Schmidt’s simple set gives Woodruff’s costumes, Maxwell Ross Pierson’s lighting and Bob Blackburn’s sound the atmospheric advantage. If the actors are somewhat youthful, their intelligence keeps the references clear -- no mean feat. Robert Stephen Ryan’s captain and Beans Morocco’s butler complete an appealing slate.

As ever, Stoppard’s intellectual prowess requires audiences to think, at daunting length. Nevertheless, “Arcadia” laces its brains with heart. This spare yet nuanced reading has both.

-- D.C.N.

“Arcadia,” Century City Playhouse, 10508 W. Pico Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 and 7 p.m. Sundays; no 7 p.m. show April 10. Ends April 10. $20. (323) 769-5794. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.

*

Groundlings bring funny to ‘Formal’

The Groundling troupe’s new main stage show, “The Groundlings Spring Formal,” is anything but mannerly. Though the company’s expected edgy audacity is a trifle muted, deft and cheeky comedy strokes in this edition of sketches and improv bring laughs aplenty.

Directed by Roy Jenkins, the outing begins with a sly payoff for a would-be in-line skater (Tim Brennen), oblivious to his athletic shortcomings and wreaking havoc in a sporting goods store. It ends in a careening song-and-dance involving a wealthy couple’s idea of support for the working classes: motivational songs.

In between, cast members rack up hilarity points. Jim Cashman scores as an expert sent to teach bewildered grade-schoolers about the evils of racism. Standout Kevin Kirkpatrick perfectly captures a little kid’s head-ducking, pants-twisting self-consciousness, and is brilliant in a funny and very rude sketch set in a country club, as the epitome of a helplessly hormone-driven teenage waiter.

A few segments approach the sublime: a horror flick trailer setup with Jill Matson and a closetful of zombies; Matson’s delicious, dead-on observation of a woman scorned, cranking up the car radio for an impassioned sing-along; Mitch Silpa and Kent Sublette in too-short jeans and matching red wigs, demonstrating “New Zealand step-dancing,” with earnest commentary from Steve Pierce (“And now, the crushing of the grain”).

On the downside, two improv segments limped along last weekend, and sketches involving a lesbian minister and a palm reader were flogged far too long.

The rockin’ live band (Willie Etra, Greg Kanaga and Larry Treadwell) is fab throughout.

-- Lynne Heffley

“The Groundlings Spring Formal,” 7307 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays, 8 and 10 p.m. Saturdays, indefinitely. $20. (323) 934-4747, Ext. 37. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.