Last Chance

Theater

J.B. --Potent theatricality has always overridden the textual pretensions of “J.B.,” and so it proves in the current Buffalo Nights production. Although Archibald MacLeish’s 1959 Pulitzer Prize-winning retelling of the Book of Job has nothing on King James, director Brian Kite and his exuberant company achieve considerable impact. MacLeish’s verse drama utilizes a circus setting, placing two clowns (Gibson Frazier and Marco Sanchez) in the roles of God and Satan, who wreak havoc upon the title character (Michael Goorjian) in successive vignettes, interrupted by an offstage prompter (voiced by Victor Garber) of metaphysical import. Kite’s energetic staging is thankfully light-handed, deftly offsetting the author’s plummy excesses.

David C. Nichols

*

Ends Sunday at the Powerhouse Theatre, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica, (866) 633-6246.

Also closing this weekend:

Pussycat Dolls Live--The insubstantial but fun retro dance revue featuring the lush and leggy Pussycat Dolls ends tonight at the Roxy, 9009 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 278-9457, (213) 365-3500.

Flight--Mikhail Bulgakov’s fevered dream about love for a homeland, haunting and beautiful yet messy and baffling, ends Saturday at the Open Fist Theatre Company, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood, (323) 882-6912.

All’s Kool That Ends Kool--Troubadour Theatre Company’s spoof, combining Shakespeare’s “All’s Well That Ends Well” with the music of Kool & the Gang, ends Saturday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd., L.A., (323) 461-3673.

The Sunshine Boys--Frank Gorshin and Dick Van Patten give comic heft to Neil Simon’s comedy about the reunion of a long-estranged vaudeville team. Ends Sunday at the Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank, (818) 955-8101.

All My Sons--Arthur Miller’s drama about how the actions of a WWII airplane parts manufacturer have a shattering effect on his family ends Sunday at the Actors Co-op, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood, (323) 462-8460.