‘Premise’: We’re all in this together

“We can’t survive alone,” goes the first of the truisms that guide “12th Premise.” It proves accurate. This U.S. premiere of Brian Crano’s MTV generation dramedy lands its surest points through inventive group tactics.

A hit at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, “12th Premise” draws from playwright-actor Crano’s own life lessons. Set between the winter of 1999 and September 2001, the plot channel-surfs between five twentysomethings who recall college touchstones while facing adult realities.

It centers on Aidan (Crano), a gay poet who struggles with belief in the face of his mother’s illness. His opposite number, boyhood friend Christian (Micah Hauptman), is an artist marked by his own parental traumas. There is deceptively cherubic Con (Jake Sandvig), whose Lutheran roots don’t preclude bedroom hypocrisy, and art student Caitlin (Danneel Harris), more perceptive than not.

These four, plus spaced-out Keaton (Erik Eidem), create a mosaic of direct-address and interactive memories. It peaks with the title realization, in which maturity trumps adolescence and hope beats nihilism.

In execution, director Kristin Hanggi and her formidable team produce A-plus work. Rob Fritz’s striking set of blank canvases melds with the kaleidoscope provided by Jay Bolton (lighting), Jason H. Thompson (projections) and Brenda Mercure (costumes). Steven Cahill’s sound design is terrific, and all five fresh-faced actors are excellent.

Although Crano’s script is admirable, stylish and heartfelt, its core theme of survival is slow to cohere with the collegiate sexual roundelay. Not all sidebars pay off, and the Act 1 curtain feels arbitrary. Yet “12th Premise” is hardly negligible. Viewers with similar histories may find its touching climax worth the wait.

-- David C. Nichols

“12th Premise,” Lillian Theatre, 1076 N. Lillian Way, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 10. Mature audiences. $25. (800) 595-4849 or www.12premise.com. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

*

‘Three Travelers’ in search of insight

At first glance, Richard Abrons’ “Three Travelers” at the Odyssey seems about as profound as a music hall sketch. However, in director Jay Broad’s nimble staging, Abrons’ lighthearted satire winds up packing quite a thematic wallop.

The play’s high-concept premise -- three jaded Western tourists seek wisdom from an East Indian guru -- could have been lifted straight out of an old New Yorker cartoon. Atop some remote Indian ruins -- brightly realized in Don Llewellyn’s fun “Temple of Doom”-like set -- sits the world-famous guru Munishree (Daniel Zacapa), a sage sought out by visitors from around the world. Today, multimillionaire business whiz Travis (Joel Polis), his disenchanted wife, Mavis (Elizabeth Karr), and Mavis’ best friend, Lydia (Amy Wieczorek), have need of the guru’s services. But their car is due back at the ruins in an hour, so Munishree had better make it snappy and enlighten them already.

Deceptively inane, Munishree is an unlikely wise man who just may possess dangerous powers, or so he cautions his current visitors. Heedless of the warning, the Westerners are swept up in a sort of cosmic truth game that shatters their preconceptions and changes their lives.

All comically acute, Polis, Karr and Wieczorek remain completely sympathetic, no mean trick, considering that they play spoiled, clueless characters struggling against their own self-created crises. But Zacapa is the fulcrum without which “Travelers” could well have pivoted into burlesque. Eerily reminiscent of Peter Sellers, the perfectly silly and perfectly serious Zacapa gives a Zen koan of a performance, ameliorating his buffoonery with a gimlet glance that could bore holes in the soul.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Three Travelers,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m. this Sunday, March 27, April 10, 24 and May 1; 7 p.m. April 3 and 17. Ends May 1. $20.50 to $25. (310) 477-2055. www.odysseytheatre.com. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

*

Back and forth through the ‘Years’

In “The Last Five Years,” Jason Robert Brown sets himself and audiences a dualistic challenge. This romantic 2002 two-hander by the Tony-winning composer-lyricist of “Parade” traces a modern relationship from first date to breakup and back again, at once.

It opens in despair, as aspiring WASP actress Cathy (Tricia Small) discovers her husband has left her, in the ballad “Still Hurting.” She proceeds to move backward through time. Ambitious Jewish writer Jamie (Stef Tovar), extolling his just-met “Shiksa Goddess,” goes chronologically forward.

Only at the stunning marital centerpiece, “The Next Ten Minutes,” do Cathy and Jamie directly interface, after which his bravado sours, her bitterness dissipates.

First seen locally at Laguna Playhouse last year, “Last Five Years” has an inbred drawback in its “she sings, he sings” structure. What floats us past this is Brown’s gorgeous score, as incisive and melodic as any he has written.

Director Calvin Remsberg’s chamber staging honors intimacy. Skillfully using the El Portal studio venue, Remsberg mainly keeps things fluid. Tom Griffin’s superb musical direction and Kristie Roldan’s lighting design make the most of the resources. Uneven casting prevents total surrender. Tovar initially oversells but relaxes into Jamie’s self-importance, riveting by the climactic “Nobody Needs to Know.” Tricia Small perilously forces her slender chops around Cathy’s writing, and choices are vague at best. Both wear head mikes, dubious in a tiny space with a string-laden combo upstage. Still, if sometimes only 2.5 of “The Last Five Years” register, Brown’s prodigious talent remains to satisfy the faithful.

-- D.C.N.

“The Last Five Years,” El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 3. $30. (818) 723-0353. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

*

They’ll take no more runaround

A women’s restroom becomes the arena for boozy female bonding in “The Shagaround,” British playwright Maggie Nevill’s dramedy, now in its U.S. premiere at Theatre/Theater.

Set in the “not too distant past,” the action takes place entirely in the loo of a busy pub. Just outside the ladies’ room door, riotous New Year’s Eve celebrations are underway. Inside, the wrath of women scorned is waxing dangerously.

The idealistic Sal (Tricia Handzlik) is so devastated over her recent jilting that her sister Beth (Jennifer Claire) is becoming seriously alarmed -- with very good reason, as it turns out.

Goth-garbed, pragmatic Lisa (Heather De Sisto) randomly gathers -- and scatters -- her rosebuds as she may. Lastingly wounded by a bad marriage, Dilly (Natalie Rose) has lapsed into a fixed cynicism. Also seriously cynical, the bright and beautiful G (Jennifer Skelly) has just learned that her boyfriend, Matt (Ingo Neuhaus), has been cheating on her.

Fueled by alcohol, G and company incarcerate Matt in a toilet cubicle, intent upon teaching this “shagaround” a lesson in loyalty and respect. But as the women later learn, treachery is by no means an exclusively male characteristic.

Nevill’s initially sitcom-esque premise strains at the seams, especially the notion that a big man could be effectively confined by a flimsy latch and a plank of plywood. However, director Jeff Murray and his winning cast, which includes Nicolette Chaffey in a couple of breezily effective walk-ons, dig beneath the surface humor to find the subterranean pathos in Nevill’s cautionary tale.

Despite its logistical improbabilities, “The Shagaround” evolves into an ultimately devastating post-mortem that examines the perils of hardening one’s heart -- and the catastrophe of not doing so.

-- F.K.F.

“The Shagaround,” Theatre/Theater, 6425 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends April 16. $15. (323) 460-7070. www.theatretheater.net. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

*

Skating fable has some rough edges

Charm is a quality that doesn’t survive a hard sell. Ditto quirkiness. In “The Smoke and Ice Follies,” playwright Mark Eisman constructs a snowflaky world of dreamers and oddballs, and director Caroline McWilliams buffs it to a high sheen of willful whimsy. The sum of their efforts is a cloying confection.

The Road Theatre cast does have its appeal, and the design -- a small ice rink and hotel room set by Desma Murphy, the costumes of Ricky Lyle -- has a retro flair that matches Eisman’s often quaint characterizations. Tenley (Stephanie Stearns), who narrates much of the play with affectedly girlish coyness, is the klutzy scion of an “ice-crazed family” whose hot-tempered brother, Scott (Zach Dulli), is left to carry on the skating tradition.

Only Scott isn’t so slick himself; he seems to have the pesky habit of gravely injuring his indomitable skating partner, the brash Gloria (Heather Sher). As their partnership founders, the absurdly tall, blond Melanie (Suzanne Friedline) is on hand as a sort of ice-skating third wheel.

Meanwhile, Tenley -- named, skating aficionados will know, after 1956 Olympic gold medalist Tenley Albright -- falls in love with a suavely self-hating tobacco heir, Philmore (Shaun O’Hagan), who helps her find her true calling.

Sound precious? It is. The cast executes some faux-skating routines with straight-faced aplomb -- Dulli’s eleventh-hour “anti-smoking” number is a hilarious high point -- and does its best with Eisman’s repetitive and contrived confrontations.

“You are over the top,” Philmore tells Tenley at one point. We might say the same of Eisman’s not-so-fabulous fable.

-- Rob Kendt

“The Smoke and Ice Follies,” the Road Theatre Company, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 24. $20. (866) 811-4111 or www.roadtheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours.