A Sturdy Revival of ‘Rhinoceros’ at Celtic Center

There’s nothing like a dash of Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros” to make us revel and shiver at the notion of life’s enduring futility.

A faithful revival of “Rhinoceros” (1960) should make mass psychosis appear almost exhilarating. And that’s the insane appeal of the spirited production at the Celtic Arts Center. Watching all those townspeople turn into a herd of rhinos, grunting and snorting in those lifelike rhinoceros heads, you viscerally feel the play’s anti-conformist message: Apply enough mass pressure and we’ll all transform into a herd of rhinos.

The play is overlong but, as staged by the Acme Theater Company, the show breathes life back into Theater of the Absurd. Director Tom Ramirez and a strong cast, eerily at first, then chillingly and finally with feverish hysteria, create the illusion of a whole town becoming pachyderms.

The first actor who turns this trick before our eyes (J. Phillip Jimenez) subtly sets the tone for the rest of the production. “We must get back to primeval integrity,” he shouts as Jean, the role that blazed Zero Mostel to triumph in the 1961 Broadway production.

The upright, weaving animal pantomime is never farcical, and the rhino masks (props credited to Christian Mathis, Joyce Weatherford and costume designer Amanda Lou Belanger), increase the uneasy tension.

The cast is also vocally strong, and its high decibel dialogue underscores another of Ionesco’s themes: the impotence of language.

The ending--in which Ionesco’s ordinary clerk and alter ego, Berenger, keeps his skin and declares, “I’m not giving up!”--remains as obscure as ever. It’s unlikely he was trumpeting his power and his humanity. One critic long ago may have put it best: “He was condemned to stay human.”

Barney Burman gives Berenger an amiable, Everyman commonality. As his love interest, K. Louise Middleton negotiates her fall into rhinodom with bizarre desire. Several of the actors vividly perform dual roles. Among them: Kristopher Logan, David Sochet, Gillian Bagwell and Sherwin Frey.

“Rhinoceros,” Celtic Arts Center Theatre, 5651 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 26. $10-$12; (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

N.O.T.E.’s ‘Bernarda’ Reaffirms Tragic Stature

Another classic of its genre is Federico Garcia Lorca’s drama of sexual repression, “The House of Bernarda Alba,” starkly revived at Theater of N.O.T.E.

Written just months before Lorca was executed by the Falangists during the Spanish Civil War, the play has for years been strongly identified with the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts in Lincoln Heights. Now Bargain Basement Productions, a new company, reaffirms its tragic stature.

As the widowed title character with five ripening daughters, Damara Reilly creates a hurricane of a woman, a forbidding, devouring, cane-brandishing mom suppressing a brood of passionate daughters.

L.A. stages have given us some strong mothers this summer: Kimberly Chase’s Hecuba in “The Trojan Women,” Mercedes McCambridge’s grandmother in “Lost in Yonkers.” Reilly’s coiled performance rivals the best of them.

Directed by Sonya Sweeney, the production, on a white and black-shrouded courtyard set by Paul Stein, is a shifting tableau of black-robed women caught between desire and honor in a constricting Spanish culture.

Enriching mood and imagery in the nine-member cast are Lois Viscoli’s assertive housekeeper La Poncia, Denise Poirier’s love-smitten Adela, Laura McCann’s rebellious grandmother and Adrienne Stout’s secretive Martirio.

“The House of Bernarda Alba,” Theatre of N.O.T.E., 1705 N. Kenmore Ave., Hollywood. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 16. $10; (213) 666-5550. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

‘Hatful of Rain’ Is Showing Its Age

Michael V. Gazzo’s “A Hatful of Rain” was an explosive child of its time. In an America just beginning to learn about drugs, it was one of the first plays to deal realistically with addiction, and was acclaimed for its frightening power when it premiered on Broadway in 1955.

Today the play can still simmer but it’s no longer on boil. The novelty of drugs is long gone, and there’s not enough about the psychology of addiction in “A Hatful of Rain” to compensate.

This is evident in the otherwise capable revival at the Gnu Theatre. Left to bank on the play’s domestic slugfest--essentially protagonist-junkie Johnny Pope’s love-hate scenes with his father and brother--the Gnu production draws its unexpected impact from two supporting performers: the vivid Don Nardini as Johnny’s protective sibling (also in love with Johnny’s wife) and John Aprea as the boastful dad.

But the two principals, addict Johnny and his caring, pregnant wife, Celia, are underplayed by Jeff Seymour and Carrie Dolce.

Dolce’s voice lacks volume, and Seymour, who co-directed with Jeff Hall, mostly looks morose instead of like a wired-up guy leading a double life. Seymour gets untracked with a vengeance, however, in Act II when long-held denials come tumbling out.

As the drug pushers, Cosmo Canale) and thugs Kevin Hunt and Richmond Arquette, sharply propel the play’s lowlife. The interior set design (also by Seymour) is certifiably of the gauche ‘50s but somehow suggests a house in the Valley instead of New York.

“A Hatful of Rain,” Gnu Theatre, 10426 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 1. $15-$20; (818) 508-5344. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Goodbye Freddy’ Reopens Actors Theatre

One year after the Hollywood Actors Theatre was destroyed by fire, the theater has returned with the same play and the same cast set to open in July, 1991.

The refurbished theater wins a gold medal. Its curtain-raiser, “Goodbye Freddy,” comes in for a silver, hovering near a bronze. Much like the movie “The Big Chill,” the play is about middle-aged friends from college days who gather for a clubby post-mortem following the funeral of one of the members of their circle.

The problem is the weight playwright Elizabeth Diggs’ gives to a character we never see. He’s the deceased, a gay man who, it develops, was secretly having an affair with one of the husbands in the group.

That revelation sparks the comical, booze-inspired confrontation between the guilty confessor, played by the otherwise believable Jack Thomas, and his hyperventilating wife, amusingly performed by Elizabeth Wells (a Shelley Long lookalike).

But the confession and the wife’s adjustment to it defy credulity. Meanwhile, other couples go through their own hoops of discord and anxiety in configurations and star turns that are too schematic and too calibrated.

The show’s strength, under Terence Goodman’s direction, is its tasty, animated acting, including that of Dale Snowberger, Livia Ann Trevino, Thomas Hoyt Godfrey and Janice Paxson.

Elaborate props by Phyllis Bayard and Marie-Therese Gwerder spice up the fashionable interior set, which goes uncredited.

“Goodbye Freddy,” Hollywood Actors Theatre, 1157 N. McCadden Place, West Hollywood. Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 25. $8-$10; (213) 962-8557. Running time: 2 hours.