‘CHAMBER’: PHILOSOPHICAL MINE FIELD

In a vast, almost empty basement a man sits hunched in a cage. It’s not quite big enough for him to stretch out. He’s been there 40 years and has found an interior freedom that no one else can understand. But today he’s going to be set free by new government leaders.

How will he cope? It’s not Samuel Beckett or an adaptation of a story by Franz Kafka. “Chamber of Little Ease” by Baynard Johnson is a new, intermissionless two-hour play that treads the mine field of philosophical drama--with qualified success.

Last year the Powerhouse Theater staged a wonderful production dealing with the philosophy of love (“Plato’s Symposium”), and now it has daringly staged another original work that is, at heart, once again philosophical.

John Crowther directs and enacts the man in the cage, and his semicrazed performance is riveting, never merely theatrical. His staging is lean and clean. There’s vivid support from Charles Howerton’s smooth lackey, Paul Raczkowski’s abrasive young guard and Margaret Pott’s chilly, Orwellian minister of corrections.

A winding, wrought-iron stairway by designer Liz Young conveys a serpentine touch. Her vaulting, cold, ash-colored environmental set artfully renders the maw of silence that’s been this political prisoner’s existence.

The trouble with the show is that the philosophical implications, while not thin, are not intellectually gripping. The result is a daunting experience--fascination alternating with tedium. The prisoner has already transcended to a Zen Buddhist state of satori. You hear rantings by the caged victim, but he’s too far gone for us to much care. One begins to feel like his captors: Let’s work this thing out and get him out of here.

The production invites comparison with “Plato’s Symposium,” but this latest excursion lacks the attraction of devilish characters at a cocktail party discoursing on Plato’s varieties of love.

What you most feel in “Chamber of Little Ease” is Crowther’s jack-knifed body language, an Orwellian nightmare and the specter of torture chambers from the Middle Ages to the future.

Performances at 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica, are Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., through July 5. Tickets: $10; (213) 392-6529.

‘CHEATERS’

A comedy about spouse-swapping at the Megaw Theater, “Cheaters” requires considerable suspension of disbelief. Playwright Michael Jacobs’ plot is an arabesque of infidelities written with a slide rule.

The pleasant surprise is that director Sydney May Morrison has, by and large, cast pearls on this rather dated sow of an adultery caper. Imagine a young woman (Lauren O’Brien) who cheerfully does all the cooking and cleaning for her live-in boyfriend (Eric Jensen)? The play was written in 1978 (it closed after 32 performances on Broadway) but it smacks of the ‘50s.

This L.A. premiere, however, features a couple of wonderful performances by the play’s two “nice” characters, touchingly conveyed by John McLaughlin and Betty Jinnette.

Flavorful turns are also delivered by the play’s nominal cads, well-timed performances by Elaine Moe and Michael Gregory.

They play two married couples involved with each other’s spouses. But they come to horribly realize this only when their children (the live-in lovers) propel their folks together for family introductions.

The hell that breaks loose, under nimble pacing, is broad but entertaining given the circumstances.

Technical credits are just OK. In this case, some rich acting has salvaged the day.

Performances at 17601 Saticoy St., Northridge, are Thursdays through Saturdays, 8:30 p.m., Sundays, 5 p.m., through June 21. Tickets: $12; (818) 881-3166.

‘THE GOOD LIFE’

One of the major challenges to the creators of musical theater is wedging enough book into a show to build strong characters. The central problem with the ambitious, full-scale musical, “The Good Life” at the Dynarski Theater, is a book that veers from the stock-market crash to the present. Along the journey, none of the characters slow down long enough to compel much interest.

Despite a sturdy human anchor, the idealistic central figure strongly performed by Alex Daniels, the production’s focus is on events and theme rather than character. Veteran film producer Edward Lewis (“Missing,” “The River,” “Spartacus”), who wrote the book and lyrics, has made a respectable theatrical writing debut but there’s too much reach here, too many characters (22), too many public and domestic scenes, and not enough commercial zap.

In structure and style, in its blend of fact and fiction, Edwards’ book suggests John Dos Passos’ 1960 theatrical collage “U.S.A.” But Edwards and director James Hatch have a musical to worry about. Randy Edelman wrote the music (16 numbers, topped by “Are You Now or Were You Ever?” and “Why Can’t We Be What We’re Meant to Be”). The score, vocally fine, lacks a single knockout punch.

The 18-member cast is generally vivid and fresh, but a choric character dressed like a parrot should be scratched.

Todd Nielsen’s choreography and David Coleman’s musical direction convey the sense of some much-needed sass.

Performances at 5600 W. Sunset Blvd., are Thursdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., through June 14. Tickets: $18; (213) 202-8587. ‘WATER WINGS’

The leading character, a lost soul of a wife seeking more out of life, is incredibly miscast. The hoped-for sexual spark and Freudian high jinks between the wife and a vaguely dangerous young neighbor (Jackson Hughes, who miraculously survives the production) are too grueling for words. The writing and direction by Doreen Ross are stultifying.

“Water Wings” at the Flight Theater in the Richmond Shepard Complex is a disaster. Doesn’t Shepard care who he rents space to? This production suggests that hoary Hollywood question--how did that movie get made?

There is a diaphanous, svelte black dancer who looks terrific (Jill Godine). She’s a symbol. The set and props, complete with a tile-looking bathtub from which the young neighbor emerges naked vying for attention with a rubber duck, make a room at the Sunset Palms look inviting.

Performances at 6472 Santa Monica Blvd., are Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m., through June 14. Tickets: $10; (213) 462-9399.