STAGE REVIEW : ‘Gas’ Still Impenetrable, Despite Effort to Liven Things Up : The best of intentions can’t change Georg Kaiser’s German Expressionist drama, which remains a didactic experience.

GARDEN GROVE —  No matter how you try to juice up Georg Kaiser’s “Gas,” one of the most famous products of the German Expressionist theater, it’s still a pretty talky and didactic affair.

A Chapman College production of “Gas” opened Wednesday night at the Gem Theatre, turning its small stage into a mostly steel-gray vision of mechanized decadence. The style is “Big Brother” chic, and the mannered acting, which seeks to evoke characters that were barely sketched by a playwright who was more interested in message-making, ranges from robotic to fevered.

Director Kirk D. Scott, a Chapman student, does attempt to jazz things up, but this “Gas” remains an impenetrable experience.

First staged on the eve of World War I, Kaiser’s drama is sturm und drang of the bleakest political sort. “Gas” warns of technology run amok in a society controlled by a few capitalists who have all the money and power.

In an anonymously futuristic setting, a giant gas plant explodes, killing hundreds of workers. In the aftermath, the hero (called the “billionaire’s son” and played by Ted Lowe) decides to build a utopian world on the ashes of the plant but is opposed by a messianic, numbers-crunching engineer (Laurel McGehee).

To her, man’s fate rests with progress and science. She has no problem seeing the little guy as a tiny cog in the big machine. The engineer rallies the workers to return to the plant as a herald of the booming industrial age, while the billionaire’s son fights to bring them under his more humanistic banner. They make a lot of speeches.

The press packet given out on opening night made a point about the relevance of “Gas” to the contemporary scene. There’s truth to that: Any thoughts about Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Love Canal underline the significance of at least part of Kaiser’s point of view. There’s importance in this play, but poor drama as well.

Scott’s attempts to liven it all up show he has imagination, but the ideas are not always good. The humorous strokes, for instance, usually contrast too harshly with the play’s seriousness. The conference room scene at the end of the first act--where Scott’s actors wear similar masks to show how interchangeable the bosses are--is a clever exception.

‘GAS’

A Chapman College production of Georg Kaiser’s drama. Directed by Kirk D. Scott. With Ted Lowe, Laurel McGehee, Megan Lowe, Paul Waddell, Louisa Dunk, Jeremy Launais, Faith Jackson, Travis White, Fiona Munro, Alex Brewer-Disarufino and Stephanie Dalton. Set by Mark Holte. Lighting by Todd Canedy. Costumes by Hiromi Zeoli. Plays tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Gem Theatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. Tickets: $5. (714) 997-6812.