STAGE REVIEW : ‘Mine’: Tragic Coming-of-Age Saga

It used to take people longer to grow up--before two world wars took away our innocence--and it wasn’t always to their advantage. Awareness of this is at the core of Ken Prestininzi’s “Mine,” the first of two plays on one program at the New One-Act Theatre Ensemble.

Prestininzi sets his play in a mining town in 1909, an era not noted for its rural sophistication. Jason and his sister, Izzy, have inherited a mine, which Jason runs. But he’s a very young man, who is just growing out of the womb of childhood friendship that has bonded him with Izzy and his best friend, Calvin. Calvin, although he works for Jason at the mine, has bossed the trio since they were small and is Jason’s hero.

Enter Christine, a calm, fairly together young woman who has won Jason’s heart, and the structure that has held the trio together begins to crumble. The eventual tragedy that follows Jason’s and Christine’s marriage is not theirs, but belongs to blustering Calvin and his juvenile attempts to keep away from Izzy and her “mud-baby” voodoo dolls, which draw him closer to his eventual doom.

“Mine” is a simple play, direct in intent and effective in its play on the emotions. Director Tracy Ward’s sense of movement, both physical and emotional, bolsters the honest period aura and informs the delicate balance of emotional power between her actors.

David Conner and Steve Morgan Haskell are excellent as Jason and his buddy, men who are still little boys inside. Eva Burgess has moments of mystery and youthful petulance as Izzy, and Coleman Hough’s cool maturity is just right for Christine.

The second play, Gary Jacobelly’s unfortunately titled “Walking Down the Fellahin Streets With a Tiger’s Head on Your Back,” is based on an incident involving the founders of the ‘50s Beat Movement. It concerns murder, hustling gays, and the women who exist only on the fringes of the Beats’ self-serving, self-involved pseudo-poetical existentialism. The characters talk in the phony, high-flown style of the genre, and in the beginning the play looks as if it might be a campy satire of its subject. But that’s before it becomes self-conscious about it.

* “Mine” & “Walking Down the Fellahin Streets With a Tiger’s Head on Your Back,” New One-Act Theatre Ensemble, 1705 N. Kenmore Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends March 6. $5-$10; (213) 666-5550. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.