'Fahrenheit 451' burns in flashes

It is the curious power of books that they seem to read us as much as we read them; a single sentence can shift our lives forever. That uncanny connection fuels fascism -- and ultimately liberation -- in "Fahrenheit 451," now staged by author Ray Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company at the Fremont Centre Theatre. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer has adapted his classic 1953 novel for the stage, and half a century later, it hasn't lost the power to chill.

Set in a painfully familiar future, "Fahrenheit" depicts an America free of critical inquiry, where everyone guest stars on reality shows and ideas are treated as infections. Guy Montag (David Mauer, alternating with Lee Holmes) works as a fireman, which is to say he starts fires, burning all books and institutionalizing their readers. But when he meets Clarisse (a helium-voiced Jessica D. Stone), his certainties start to erode, and he's soon stealing Dickens and the Bible from incineration sites.

This is an ambitious "Fahrenheit" for a small venue -- it features projections, video clips, and numerous fires -- and director Alan Neal Hubbs' production doesn't quite pull it all off. John Edw. Blankenchip's set design, all verticality and smooth walls, certainly evokes a society of inhuman scale, but the production's aesthetic lacks consistency: at one point fire appears in the form of a paper cut-out, and then later as a more abstract lighting cue.

What tracks, thanks to Mauer's understated performance, is Montag's dawning realization that he is a man who can't live without asking questions. Bradbury's vision affirms the incantatory power of the written word, ensuring that "Fahrenheit" remains a bracing parable.

-- Charlotte Stoudt

"Fahrenheit 451," Fremont CentreTheatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. No performance July 4. Ends July 26. $10-$20. (323) 960-4451. Running time: 2 hours.

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