‘Ghetto Cabaret’ Blurs the Line Between Survival, Collaboration

“We rip the basic necessities of human survival out from under you,” marvels the sardonic Nazi occupation commander at the resilience of his Lithuanian Jewish captives. “And what do you do? You build a theater--you sing and dance!”

Trivial entertainment becomes an allegorical vehicle for keeping the human spirit alive amid the squalid horrors of the Holocaust in Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol’s “Ghetto Cabaret” (first presented in English as “Ghetto” at the Mark Taper Forum in 1986). Newly adapted by producer Jorge Albertella and director Letitzia Schwartz, a stirring--though unevenly cast--L.A. Jewish Theatre staging effectively tugs at the heartstrings and the social conscience. Based on historical events, this story of a scrappy troupe of reluctant actors mirrors the ever-narrowing options for an entire population, complete with hard choices, internal strife and fundamental ethical questions to which there are no right answers.

In the unenviable center of the drama sits Gens (Eddie Padilla), the appointed Jewish police chief who serves as cat’s paw for the sinister malice of the omnipotent Nazi, Kittel (Andy Brendle).

Padilla’s gaunt, haunted presence eloquently conveys the burden of Gens’ no-win position, as he tries to keep some of his people alive at the cost of appeasement and collaboration with his persecutor. A wealthy factory owner (Gary Bullock) adopts a strategy of even further capitulation, supplying Nazi uniforms in an attempt to make himself indispensable. What price survival, the play ponders--especially in a world where one cannot afford a clear conscience?

Brendle’s baleful malevolence is the centerpiece of the show, illuminating Kittel’s keen intellect and self-awareness of his own utterly black heart--a chilling embodiment of culture corrupted beyond redemption.

Also noteworthy are Lisa Fishman as the beautiful singer with the voice of an angel who plays a dangerous game of flirtation with Kittel, and Moe Gans-Pomerantz as a jester who uses a sock puppet to hurl barbs of defiance.

The staging leavens the darkness with some nicely choreographed musical interludes. However, the depictions of amateur performers by some of the supporting cast prove realistic to the point of distraction. Yet despite its reliance on familiar holocaust themes, this piece still packs plenty of emotional wallop.

Philip Brandes

“Ghetto Cabaret,” L.A. Jewish Theatre at A! Theatre, 1528 Gordon St., Hollywood. Thursdays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends June 23. $18. (310) 967-1352 or (323) 466-0179. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

*

‘Monkeyhouse’ Is Rife With Absurdist Turns

“A Lonely Monkeyhouse,” a Company of Angels production now playing an extended run at the Two Roads Theatre, is a wacky absurdist comedy that defies easy recapitulation.

High concept this is not. Energetically skewing reality at every turn, Martin Dockery’s play is so weirdly offbeat, it plays like a transcribed dream. The most normal and accessible character in this eccentric mix happens to be a shaven female chimpanzee now passing for human. Other characters include a troubled married couple--he has fallen in love with the chimpanzee; she is an armed and dangerous woman scorned--a World Health Organization bureaucrat who is convinced he is God’s exponent on Earth and a young man who has a hand where his foot should be.

Did we mention that the planet, spinning ever faster on its axis, is about to be torn apart by centrifugal force? In fact, the crack is beginning right in the center of the town square.

Dockery’s pre-apocalyptic shenanigans are lighthearted, loony and purposely disorienting. The disgruntled wife’s attempt to patch the world together with Elmer’s glue is the stuff of fine Carrollian nonsense. Occasionally, however, Dockery’s stream-of-consciousness musings seem the stuff of a first draft--meandering, undisciplined and noncohesive. Fortunately, director Jon Malmed’s antic staging lends heft to Dockery’s featherweight endeavor, balancing the manic energy that the play requires with solid comic timing. The appropriately angst-ridden ensemble, which features Michael Merton, Sarah Nina Phillips, Patrick Gorman, Carolyn Crotty, Noel Johansen, Christian Arroyo and Gary J. Klavans, is straightforwardly zany, spinning ever faster on the play’s axis without tearing its delicate microcosm apart.

F. Kathleen Foley

“A Lonely Monkeyhouse,” Two Roads Theatre, 4348 Tujunga Ave., Studio City. Fridays only, 8 p.m. Ends July 5. $14. (323) 883-1717. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Diary of a Transformed Housewife in ‘Friedan’

Despite the possibilities opened up by the feminist movement, the balancing act between domestic and career roles still poses tough challenges for today’s women. Back in 1958, the straitjacket of social acceptability made the obstacles even more daunting.

For full-time housewife and closet aspiring playwright Amy Nichols, the unexpected interest in her work by a top Broadway producer brings chaotic disruption to Eisenhower-era suburban tranquillity in Ann Marcus’ “Waiting for Betty Friedan” at Theatre East in Studio City.

As the co-creator of the hit 1970s anti-sitcom “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” Marcus has already demonstrated she is no stranger to the theme of housewives beset by wacky predicaments. With this new warmhearted comedy, Marcus turns back the clock to a time when pursuing creative talents was a frightening new frontier for her heroine, effectively played by Elizabeth Mann in Stu Berg’s staging.

Amy is so embarrassed by her artistic ambitions that she keeps her efforts a secret from her lawyer husband, Arthur (Michael Harrity), who after predictable stubborn opposition reverses course in a charmingly played reconciliation scene.

Complicating Amy’s dilemma are ill-timed visits from Amy’s bohemian New York friends (Suzanne Hunt and Derrel Maury) and a shifty theatrical agent (Barry Jenner). Dan Gilvary brings offbeat mischief reminiscent of Joe E. Brown to Arthur’s boss, who shows up for dinner at the worst possible time.

Buoyed by agreeable performances, the quick-moving story sustains interest. But this Cinderella story is too fuzzy around the edges to cut very deeply. Amy’s talent and intelligence are qualities we have to take on faith, as no opportunities arise for her to display them, and there is never a sense of anything fundamental at stake here. With no new insights or perspectives reached, retro charm ultimately slides into dated familiarity.

P.B.

“Waiting for Betty Friedan,” Theatre East, 12655 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends June 30. $18. (818) 788-4396. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

*

Native Voices at the Autry Begins With ‘Jump Kiss’

“Jump Kiss: An Indian Legend,” at the Autry Museum’s Wells Fargo Theatre, is a miniaturist snapshot of family life that blurs when stretched to fit a larger theatrical framework.

The play is the first script chosen for production by the Native Voices at the Autry series. The program bios feature not only a list of credits but the exact ethnic mix of the performers, most of whom are of Native American descent. That’s somewhat ironic because only the trappings of this production--a man in Native American garb performing authentic ceremonial music, archival photographs of Native Americans, even footage of buffalo roaming the plains--have any ethnic specificity.

Although playwright Diane Glancy, the daughter of a Cherokee father and a German-English mother, attempts to extrapolate some larger meaning from her autobiographical account about growing up in a mixed-race household in 1950s Kansas, the play remains a generic portrait of any family and any place.

Perhaps that is intentional, a wry statement on the commonality of human experience and the narrowness of the ethnic divide. Yet despite a few memorable interludes and a certain elegiac lyricism, Glancy’s narrative is mushy, her characters underdeveloped. The play, which is narrated by Glancy’s adult self (Dolores Apollonia Chavez), is subtitled “An Indian Legend,” but legendary elements--apart from one Cherokee fable thrown into the mix--are in short supply. Glancy’s treatment of her Cherokee father (Gil Birmingham), an avid hunter and outdoorsman trapped in a benumbing job in a Kansas slaughterhouse, is poignant, yet cursory.

Despite Glancy’s allusions to marital polarization, both in her parents’ relationship and in her own painfully failed marriage, we are never privy to the precise source of all this dissension and pain.

Glancy’s childhood self (Tonantzin Carmelo) may refer to her fractious relationship with her mother (Ellen Dostal), but the strife is only alluded to, never dramatized. And what, exactly, resulted in Glancy’s complete alienation from her husband after 20 years of marriage remains unclear.

The high points in Randy Reinholz’s disciplined yet ponderous staging are Birmingham and Dostal, whose sweet sexual chemistry may not serve Glancy’s themes of marital alienation, but who give scope and substance to Glancy’s dramatized journal.

F.K.F.

“Jump Kiss: An Indian Legend,” Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. (except for this Saturday, 2 p.m.), Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends June 23. $15. (323) 655-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.