Last Chance

Theater

Anna Christie--Those who inextricably link this play with the famous 1930 film starring Greta Garbo will find this production at Pacific Resident Theatre a revelation. Granted, given today’s bare-all, tell-all standards, Eugene O’Neill’s drama is hardly likely to seriously rankle anyone’s proprieties. However, its emotional force remains undiminished by time.

That’s largely due to the close-to-the-bone direction by Gar Campbell, whose emphasis on the play’s psychological truth relegates Garbo’s performance to the history books. Victoria Profitt’s scenic art design and David Dionisio’s scenic design combine to give the production an appropriately stripped-down, penurious look--”Lower Depths” on the waterfront. Kellie Canning’s costumes look unobtrusively well-worn, Keith Endo’s lighting is as flickering and changeable as the ocean itself, and Kevin Rahm’s subtle sound design is exceptional--all creaking timbers and distant bells.

F. Kathleen Foley

*

Closes Sunday at Pacific Resident Theatre, 703-707 Venice Blvd., Venice, (310) 822-8392.

Also closing this weekend:

Getting Frankie Married--and Afterwards--Horton Foote’s cleareyed look at the fault line between a domineering old woman, her middle-aged son and his long-suffering girlfriend, ends its world premiere production Sunday at South Coast Repertory Theatre, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, (714) 708-5555.

Richard III--Shakespeare’s history with Jack Stehlin in the title turn and the ever-laudable Alfred Molina as a bang-up Buckingham ends Sunday at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A., (310) 477-2055.

Sympathetic Magic--The crisp production of Lanford Wilson’s exploration of the self-contained mini-universe of the individual human being ends Saturday at the El Portal Center for the Arts, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, (323) 769-7060.

Far East--A.R. Gurney’s semiautobiographical play about his time as a young officer on a U.S. naval base in Japan during the Cold War, with a dynamic performance by Laura Wernette as a frustrated wife, ends Sunday at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, (949) 497-2787.

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change--Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts’ comic musical about suburban relationships ends Sunday at the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts, Cal State Long Beach. Today and Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.(562) 430-2324.