THEATER REVIEW / LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL : Breaking Away : Santa Barbara City College Theatre Group presents the powerful drama about a family in conflict.

Thomas Wolfe lent an early voice to American alienation with his famous phrase “You can’t go home again.� In his semi-autobiographical novel “Look Homeward Angel,� Wolfe also gave some compelling reasons why you probably wouldn’t want to.

Ketti Frings’ 1957 stage adaptation of Wolfe’s masterpiece focused on the universal family dynamics that make life so troubled and sadly beautiful for parents and children alike. And Rick Mokler’s staging of the play for the Santa Barbara City College Theatre Group renders those conflicts with an authentic urgency that makes this the most powerful drama we’ve seen at the Garvin in some time.

That the company achieves it with an all-amateur cast is all the more impressive.

Gabriel Lockwood plays Eugene Gant, the 17-year-old aspiring writer (and thinly veiled stand-in for Wolfe) at the center of this coming-of-age story. For Eugene, the autumn of 1916 brings a widening of horizons far beyond his familiar life in a small North Carolina town. In the space of a few short weeks, he experiences his first love affair, the dissolution of his family, and the recognition that his future lies away from home in the irreversible exile of adult life.

But to attain it, he must sever the maternal apron strings that bind him to childhood dependency--a particularly tricky proposition given the iron will of the family matriarch, Eliza Gant (Saral Burdette). Eliza wields the family purse strings with a tight-fisted vengeance, which Burdette’s performance shows us stems from the otherwise powerless condition common to women of her era. She’s certainly not about to fund her little Eugene’s escape to college, because she cannot acknowledge the necessity of letting go.

Eliza’s obsession with control is a perpetual irritant to Eugene’s alcoholic father (Fred Lehto), a stonecutter whose lifelong pursuit has been to carve a perfect angel out of brute marble. (Ironically, production logistics here eliminated the scene change to Gant’s studio, so we never see his angels--we just hear about them.) While Lehto proves harrowing in his scenes of bellowing abuse, he also reveals the all-too-human failures that have knotted the man’s poetic soul.

Though neither parent is consciously ill-intentioned, the effect is suffocating for their children, and herein lies the eternal conflict so poignantly evoked in the play. It prompts Ben (Jay Carlander), the older brother Eugene idolizes, to urge him to steal, lie, or do anything else he can to squeeze the college money he needs from Eliza.

Most prominent among the capable supporting cast are Andrea Anderson as the mysterious boarder with whom Eugene strikes up a bittersweet romance and Rose Anna B. Vitetta as the good-natured older woman who provides the only compassion and understanding in Ben’s world. Alas, one way or another, both of the brothers have to cut their ties to older women.

While Wolfe’s novel contained some of the most hauntingly beautiful prose ever written, only occasional glimpses survive the more functional dialogue in Frings’ adaptation--comments like the father’s regret for “the waste of years--the red wound of all our mistakes.� Fans of the novel are advised to appreciate the dramatic elements on their own terms.

Fortunately, the fine performances here make that easy, keeping the issues in focus and pertinent. There are scenes guaranteed to evoke pangs of recognition in anyone. But Lockwood’s convincing portrayal of Eugene is the anchor, evoking Wolfe’s quest as “Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten lane--end into heaven, a stone a leaf, an unfound door.�

* WHERE AND WHEN

LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL will be performed through Oct. 31, Thursday through Saturday evenings at 8, matinee Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $14 Fridays and Saturdays, $12 Thursdays and Sundays. Call (805) 965-5935 for reservations or further information.