'Rose's' heroics go on and on

At center stage, an elderly woman sits alone on a plain wooden bench. As she explains, she is sitting shiva -- in Jewish tradition, a weeklong period of mourning for the dead. The source of her grief? An unnamed child, killed in an unspecified act of violence. Later -- oh, how much later -- we will learn that child's identity. But by then, we feel as if we have sat through the entire weeklong ritual, without respite.

It's fortunate we are in congenial company. As the title and only character in Martin Sherman's solo show "Rose," now at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Naomi Newman is a force to be reckoned with. A vibrantly mature actress with a beautifully un-Botoxed face, Newman holds the stage for well over two hours, seldom faltering in her intensity. Under the perspicacious direction of Judy Chaikin, she lends purpose to a character that progresses from the credible to the far-fetched.

The first act charts Rose's journey from isolated shtetl life to the vibrant intellectual center of Warsaw, where she meets the love of her life and bears his child. Her happiness is cut short when the Nazis pen up Warsaw's Jews in the infamous Ghetto, where Rose's loved ones are exterminated.

Sherman, best known for the Holocaust drama "Bent," keenly evokes Rose's wartime travails, as well as her postwar peregrinations. But upon her arrival in America, Rose's escapades soon dwindle into silliness. Bizarrely determined to be possessed by her dead husband, she resorts to cabalistic spells of a noxiously scatological variety. And her middle-aged antics in a hippie commune are too cursory to be plausible.

"Rose" has had several productions, including runs at the Royal National and the Lincoln Center. It's difficult to understand, then, why it wasn't judiciously trimmed somewhere along the line. In its present form, despite Newman's most heroic efforts, it remains unfocused, long-winded and strained.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

"Rose," Odyssey, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Call for exceptions. $25-$30. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

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'Awakening' edgy but lacks shock

A challenge to societal complacency underscores Frank Wedekind's plays, starting with his first, "Fruhlingserwachen," which the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble has correctly translated as "Spring's Awakening." This nobly intended new adaptation of the German playwright's controversial 1891 classic about sexually burgeoning teens is clearly a labor of love.